Amazon puts on an annual conference in Las Vegas called re:Invent.  But the conference, which boasts 50,000 engineering geek types is a blog post for another day.

One can only take so much techie talk in a week, no matter how much of a geek we are.  In search of some balance for my week, I discovered my calendar was free Wednesday evening so I scanned for some shows on the strip.  People who know me well know that I’m a Beatles fan.  For me it’s a combination of the Beatles music — which is arguably the best catalog of rock music produced in a decade — and Beatlemania, which is best depicted by videos of screaming girls in the Ed Sullivan Theater.

As luck would have it, the Mirage had a nightly Cirque du Soleil called “Beatles Love” which piqued my interest.  The deciding factor was the Mirage was easily walkable – right across the street from where I was staying.  This was my very first Cirque du Soleil experience so I was looking forward to it, though I was wishing Donna could have come with me on this trip.  She would have really loved it.

Sometimes being a Beatles fan comes at a price.  I think I may have found one of a handful of G rated shows in Las Vegas.  Secretly I was hoping for PG-13 at least, I mean c’mon, this is Las Vegas!

The first thing I noticed was the intimate nature of the stage.  I bought a mid-range priced ticket yet I was in the 2nd row, literally 5 feet from the performers at times.  The stage itself is small.  I was wondering how they’d navigate the show around such a small space.

For those who haven’t seen it and are wondering, think Woodstock meets Fantasia meets Grease meets Ringling Brothers meets a Stanley Kubrick film.  The writers intentionally used Beatles lyrics to tell a story – with dance like you’d see in a musical.  Other times with high-flying acrobatics with actors in costume.

The choreography was colorful as you’d expect for a 60’s based show.  Blues, reds, yellows, bright greens everywhere.  What caught me off guard a little bit was how imaginative it all was.  Nothing was too weird costume-wise for “The Beatles — Love” similar to Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”.  Case in point, the segment they put together around Ringo’s “Octopus’s Garden.”  White octopus ghost like figures, brightly lit, hanging from ropes, and then larger ones that turned out to have humans underneath them getting ready to do some acrobatic moves.

Volkswagen had a noticeable role in the show with multiple VW bugs and vans when it came time to reminisce about Woodstock and the hippie movement.

As you probably guessed, there were high trapeze type acts with ropes, platforms, ladders, and long bungee chords.  The athleticism itself is impressive.  These are people with about 3-4% body fat.  Sometimes in the moment there’s so much going on above you with the acrobatics and straight ahead with the dance choreography that you’re not sure what to focus on.

As an infrastructure geek, I’m continually amazed at the stage design and what it must take to move all those parts and pieces around to fit so perfectly for different segments of the show.  Now that would be an interesting engineering project to work on.

The show covered many Beatles favorites so think super imaginative story telling and choreography around Here Comes the Sun, Penny Lane, Twist and Shout, Help!, Blackbird, and Hey Jude.   My favorite though was Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.  A female trapeze artist in a white dress with shiny lights on it everywhere soared across the landscape to that song, twisting, turning and doing acrobatic moves that catch you off guard.

I’d recommend the show for families or if you’re super Beatles curious like I am.