Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Oh, yes, I spent my New Years in the company of---Barry Manilow.
Well, not exactly...
Last summer, Lindsay and I created the "Bagging Barry" plan, which essentially meant that we intended to go and see his show in Las Vegas and spend the New Year in the city as well--the New Years' celebration being entirely secondary to seeing Mr. Manilow, of course.

As you can see, we were successful in this endeavor.


Above we have Barry singing "Mandy" at the piano and below it, Barry singing one of the classic hits from the 1960s off of his newest CD. Yes, Lindsay and I were, by far, the youngest attendees in the audience. We even had to instruct our closest seated neighbors how to get the glow sticks, handed out to all of the audience members before the show, to actually glow. In a phone message left by me after the concert, I described it as having "lots of music, lots of passion..." and Lindsay handily added in "lots of boas..."


We stayed at the Monte Carlo on the Strip, although the sheer size of these places there makes distance seem rather deceiving. It can take about twenty minutes to get from one place to another because you are literally "passing" the places on the way for such a long time.


On New Years, the most interesting elements involved included one fifty year old guy who had taken the time to write "Show your Tits" on a piece of cardboard with a green marker and was showing it to all who passed by, a bunch of "The End is Nigh" Christians holding signs condemning just about everyone and everything (one even had his own wooden cross, life size) holding up foot traffic in the streets, and the simultaneous fireworks let off at a few of the hotels at midnight.

We also saw "Mystere" by Cirque de Soliel at Treasure Island. It really is characteristic of the surrealism associated with the troupe. However, the surprising thing was the audience participation element. An "usher" made occasional appearances from the beginning to the end of the show, generally harassing audience members. Lindsay, at one point, did exhibit extraordinarily good judgement, given an "infant" in the form of one of the performers rolled a large, rubber, orange ball in the direction of our row, which was stopped by a railing in front of us. The "infant" indicated that he wanted the ball returned to him, so Lindsay stood up and pushed it back. Of course, this only prompted him to roll it again, and Lindsay refused to perform the same office a second time. A more compassionate audience member a few seats away obliged, only to become the "infant's" designated "Mama" for the rest of the show. Well done avoiding that fate, Lindsay.

Lest I be accused of putting off my "tag" for yet another post (now only understanding for the first time what the tag actually means), I shall leave off for the present.

"When will our eyes meet...."

15 comments:

CCCCppppCCppp said...

s

glad to see you were able to have some fun

Aisha said...

A place with lots of boas is a fabulous place to be, Manilow or not :)

Aisha said...

What does the tag actualy mean?

M@ said...

Your trip to Las Vegas sounds a lot different than mine.

Jean-Luc Picard said...

The Cirque De Doliel show sounds fantastic.

Alicia M B Ballard StudioGaleria said...

Hello dear Sls

How is that for culture shock!
I mean the Vegas strip... not The Cirque - oh... how would I have jumped (OK, crawled) into action after the ball...

A big new year's hug and best wishes for looooove and stuff in 2007!

Alicia M B Ballard StudioGaleria said...

PS.: and, I did not even mention Barry!

You know, everyone "secretely" liked him... still does

courtney said...

oooh mandy, well you came and you gave without taking....

barry manilow. *sigh*

and i'm younger than you are! you no longer have to feel like a freak. thank you very much.

Kat said...

Barry is really making a comeback...except in Australia where he's used to ward off loitering teens. What a fun New Year's! Very jealous.

HeatherLynn said...

Man if my friend Denise knew you went to see Barry, she'd be so Jealous. I might tell her just to get her all fired up! *wink*

Great pictures by the way!

~hl~

Anonymous said...

I love Barry (and have since the 70's) and would have loved to go to Vegas and see him! And I'll openly admit--I'm a bit jealous--Vegas on New Years w/Barry Manilow sounds like awesome fun (although I did enjoy going to "Medieval Times" for dinner on New Years Eve)!!

and I think Tag in blogger terms means you have to respond in your own blog about something someone else stated in their blog...

booda baby said...

How excellent - to actually do what you wanted to be doing!! Inexplicably (well, it does seem to surprise friends) I'm crazy about Vegas, so I'm doubly happy for you.

I believe you'll take on the New Year with the same enthusiasm. I hope it replies with great stuff.

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Christina said...

That sounds like a great New Year's. I'd like to go see Prince now that he's performing there.

Anonymous said...

That looks amazing, what a fantastic start to the New Year :). I had no idea Prince was performing there now - I'd love to see him perform live...