Monday, April 20, 2009
Viva Las Beatles!
Each year there are two weekends that I partake in that recharge my batteries, remind me who I really am and light me up like The Las Vegas Strip. Every August since 1997 I’ve attended Chicago’s Beatlefest (now known as the Fest for Beatles Fans). I haven’t missed one yet and I’ve performed on the big stage each year. And since 1999, I’ve gone to at least one therapeutic humor conference each year, although I missed out on the laughs last year. The therapeutic humor conferences have always been in February, March or April so the early spring laughter has been able to sustain me into the late summer music fest.
What would happen if I somehow combined these experiences? Although the New York/New Jersey Metro Fest for Beatles Fans happens in March and there is a Fest in Las Vegas in July, I made my first trip to Las Vegas this past April Fools Day and my weekend was filled with both Therapeutic Humor and the Beatles! I was invited to take part in the annual Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (AATH) Conference as both the MC for our Friday night member showcase and as a co-leader for Saturday afternoon’s therapeutic clown field trip to an assisted living center. AATH gave us Saturday night off to go play in Vegas and I learned a long time ago to never go home the day the conference ends, so we had Sunday night open as well.
I’ve wanted to see LOVE, the Beatles’ Cirque du Soleil show since it opened in 2006. All of my Beatles’ pals loved it and I knew I would too, but could I get tickets? Could I afford to go? I looked into several options for discounted tickets and it came down to the stressful “let’s see if we can get half-priced tickets at the day of show discount booth.” All the usual worrisome thoughts filled my head… “What if they’re sold out? What if only the most expensive seats were discounted? What if I come all the way out to Vegas and I don’t get to see LOVE?” While I attended the morning keynote presentations at the conference, Barb went out to score the tickets. She has an amazing talent at producing the proverbial golden ticket at times like this, so I knew I was in good hands, but just how it would unfold remained a mystery. The Tahiti Village time-share condo sales team was out in full force and they had the cheapest tickets if we would sit through two hours of their repulsive sales pitch, but then Barb found a decent deal and bought tickets for the Sunday night early show. We were going to see LOVE!
I forgot about the Beatles-themed Revolution Night Club in the Mirage until we got there. I remember hearing that people weren’t too impressed with the club and I’d agree with them but I took some cool pictures of the Beatles Song Title Double Wall. A metal wall with Beatles song titles cut out of the metal reveals a hot pink wall with all the other song titles written in various styles, sizes and fonts. Very cool.
I’m not going to review LOVE. All I can say is, if you haven’t seen it, go see it. It’s a sensory overload experience that can give you a psychedelic trip without partaking in mind-altering substances. It was real interesting for me to watch the dynamics in the lobby before and after the show. While people are waiting in line for their $11 glasses of wine and $6 buckets of popcorn, they are listening to these great Beatles songs being played on the speakers, but few people react. I’m all jazzed up from the humor conference and I’m finding it odd that everyone in the lobby is all caught up in the “we’re on our best behavior because we’re going out to the theatre this evening” mentality. This is the perfect opportunity for a big Beatles sing-along, but for the most part we stand in single file lines like zombies. After the show is a different energy. People have allowed themselves to turn off their minds, relax and float downstream. Older ladies who might have been the cool moms in 1964 are now twisting and singing along. Smiles, wide eyes and loud voices fill the same lobby 90-minutes after it was inhabited by zombies. What if we lived our lives like that… ready to party at every opportunity instead of waiting for permission or appropriate times before we let loose?
The humor conference took place at the Riviera but we stayed down the street at the Sahara. Our local guide, Bob Brye, once upon a time from Ludington, Michigan told us they have better rooms and better deals. Two of the nights we stayed for $32! On our first trip up to the room I noticed the Beatles pictures and found out we were staying in the same tower the Beatles stayed in almost 45 years ago on the night of their one and only performance in Las Vegas.
Well, I had to go on the pilgrimage to see their room and documented it with these photos.
As a performer, there’s something about being able to say, “I played Vegas.” Of course when you get out there the game seems to be “whoever has the biggest advertising budget wins!” And not all venues are created equal. They say the LOVE Theater in the Mirage cost over $100 million to build… and then there’s the stage in the Sahara casino where a band called
Sixties Mania played for 4 hours each night, 5 nights a week. They pretty much supplied background music for the gamblers in the casino, although they had some tables and chairs and a small dance floor in front of their very simple stage. They always had people in the seats and a few would even venture out onto the dance floor. For some, this was their wedding reception. The bride had a T-shirt with “BRIDE” written on it and wore a white skirt. The groom had a tuxedo T-shirt. We were pretty exhausted from laughing all day, but we couldn’t go up to the room without sitting down to listen to a song or two each night. No, we didn’t hear them do any Beatles songs, but I noticed the bass player played left-handed. And then I noticed he had a Hofner bass sitting on stage behind him. But then the strangest thing was when he had on his glasses, he looked and acted exactly like John Lennon, more so than most of the Beatles’ look-alike bands I’ve seen. He is a big Beatles’ fan and hails from Australia, where the Sixties Mania band originated… “Imagine all the Aussies… Living life with sheep… yoo-hoo…”
With all of the Beatles parodies I’ve done at the Fest for Beatles Fans, maybe the icing on the cake would be performing a Beatles parody in Vegas. As the MC for the AATH Friday night member showcase, I had that opportunity, but chose to open the show with an Elvis parody instead. You can watch my “Viva Las Vegas” parody slide show presentation below. My version is called “Laughing in Vegas”… which is how I spent my Las Vegas vacation.
What would happen if I somehow combined these experiences? Although the New York/New Jersey Metro Fest for Beatles Fans happens in March and there is a Fest in Las Vegas in July, I made my first trip to Las Vegas this past April Fools Day and my weekend was filled with both Therapeutic Humor and the Beatles! I was invited to take part in the annual Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (AATH) Conference as both the MC for our Friday night member showcase and as a co-leader for Saturday afternoon’s therapeutic clown field trip to an assisted living center. AATH gave us Saturday night off to go play in Vegas and I learned a long time ago to never go home the day the conference ends, so we had Sunday night open as well.
I’ve wanted to see LOVE, the Beatles’ Cirque du Soleil show since it opened in 2006. All of my Beatles’ pals loved it and I knew I would too, but could I get tickets? Could I afford to go? I looked into several options for discounted tickets and it came down to the stressful “let’s see if we can get half-priced tickets at the day of show discount booth.” All the usual worrisome thoughts filled my head… “What if they’re sold out? What if only the most expensive seats were discounted? What if I come all the way out to Vegas and I don’t get to see LOVE?” While I attended the morning keynote presentations at the conference, Barb went out to score the tickets. She has an amazing talent at producing the proverbial golden ticket at times like this, so I knew I was in good hands, but just how it would unfold remained a mystery. The Tahiti Village time-share condo sales team was out in full force and they had the cheapest tickets if we would sit through two hours of their repulsive sales pitch, but then Barb found a decent deal and bought tickets for the Sunday night early show. We were going to see LOVE!
I’m not going to review LOVE. All I can say is, if you haven’t seen it, go see it. It’s a sensory overload experience that can give you a psychedelic trip without partaking in mind-altering substances. It was real interesting for me to watch the dynamics in the lobby before and after the show. While people are waiting in line for their $11 glasses of wine and $6 buckets of popcorn, they are listening to these great Beatles songs being played on the speakers, but few people react. I’m all jazzed up from the humor conference and I’m finding it odd that everyone in the lobby is all caught up in the “we’re on our best behavior because we’re going out to the theatre this evening” mentality. This is the perfect opportunity for a big Beatles sing-along, but for the most part we stand in single file lines like zombies. After the show is a different energy. People have allowed themselves to turn off their minds, relax and float downstream. Older ladies who might have been the cool moms in 1964 are now twisting and singing along. Smiles, wide eyes and loud voices fill the same lobby 90-minutes after it was inhabited by zombies. What if we lived our lives like that… ready to party at every opportunity instead of waiting for permission or appropriate times before we let loose?The humor conference took place at the Riviera but we stayed down the street at the Sahara. Our local guide, Bob Brye, once upon a time from Ludington, Michigan told us they have better rooms and better deals. Two of the nights we stayed for $32! On our first trip up to the room I noticed the Beatles pictures and found out we were staying in the same tower the Beatles stayed in almost 45 years ago on the night of their one and only performance in Las Vegas.
Well, I had to go on the pilgrimage to see their room and documented it with these photos.
As a performer, there’s something about being able to say, “I played Vegas.” Of course when you get out there the game seems to be “whoever has the biggest advertising budget wins!” And not all venues are created equal. They say the LOVE Theater in the Mirage cost over $100 million to build… and then there’s the stage in the Sahara casino where a band called
Sixties Mania played for 4 hours each night, 5 nights a week. They pretty much supplied background music for the gamblers in the casino, although they had some tables and chairs and a small dance floor in front of their very simple stage. They always had people in the seats and a few would even venture out onto the dance floor. For some, this was their wedding reception. The bride had a T-shirt with “BRIDE” written on it and wore a white skirt. The groom had a tuxedo T-shirt. We were pretty exhausted from laughing all day, but we couldn’t go up to the room without sitting down to listen to a song or two each night. No, we didn’t hear them do any Beatles songs, but I noticed the bass player played left-handed. And then I noticed he had a Hofner bass sitting on stage behind him. But then the strangest thing was when he had on his glasses, he looked and acted exactly like John Lennon, more so than most of the Beatles’ look-alike bands I’ve seen. He is a big Beatles’ fan and hails from Australia, where the Sixties Mania band originated… “Imagine all the Aussies… Living life with sheep… yoo-hoo…”
With all of the Beatles parodies I’ve done at the Fest for Beatles Fans, maybe the icing on the cake would be performing a Beatles parody in Vegas. As the MC for the AATH Friday night member showcase, I had that opportunity, but chose to open the show with an Elvis parody instead. You can watch my “Viva Las Vegas” parody slide show presentation below. My version is called “Laughing in Vegas”… which is how I spent my Las Vegas vacation.
