LOVE is Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles themed show at the Mirage. The first neat thing you will experience when you go to the show is the staff. The ushers and ticket-takers are costumed in Sgt. Pepper’ish outfits. The women are in very mod blue dresses with bonnets and the men are in red band uniforms. Many of them get pulled aside before and after the show for photo ops. Once in the theater there are some preshow antics, but no one gets led astray or pulled onstage. It is very audience friendly.
There is a small storyline for this show. It is the classic storyline of one guy trying to get the girl. At the beginning, 4 guys arrive onstage with flowers. During the first number 4 girls also arrive, but 2 of the girls run off with 1 guy, leaving our hopeful hero by himself. This storyline does seem to disappear at times but the show does end with the happy conclusion of that story.
Unlike most Cirque shows, there is no live music. It is all highly remixed versions of the Beatles recordings. Even with the remixing, most of the songs are still very familiar and recognizable. Some of the remixing includes backwards vocals and taking the drum track from one song and using it for another. You can tell that George Martin and his son Giles had a lot of fun with this project. The one exception to the prerecorded music was ‘Blackbird’. It was done as a spoken word piece while 4 performers fly and crash in blackbird costumes. It is a nice little bit of comedy.
The sound system is incredible and they have incorporated speakers into the headrests of each seat. The set is fairly typical of the other Cirque shows, using a bare stage with lots of trap doors, moving sections and curtains. Sheer curtains fly in and out from time to time to be used as projection surfaces. There is also a permanent projection surface above the back row of sections 200-202 and 207-209. Many elements rise from beneath the stage. They have some of the typical acrobatic contraptions like springboards. They also add 2 skating half-pipes for a very good rollerblading piece.
The projections are a major part of the show; perhaps too big a part. If you are sitting in the upper level 300’s sections, there are times when projection screens will fly in and obstruct your view of the stage and the permanent screens. There are also times when the stage show stops and everyone is just watching the projections.
For the best overall view, you will want to be in sections 101, 102, 107, 108, 200, 201, 202, 207, 208, or 209. I would avoid the 300’s if possible.
Show times are 7pm and 9:30pm, Thursday through Monday (Dark on Tuesday & Wednesday). Tickets are available online or at the Mirage box office. They currently start at $79 and go up to $180. Promotional offers are available via the Mirage website. It is also possible to get tickets to LOVE as a reward on the myVEGAS game.
This is a great show for all ages and I highly recommend it. If you want to get a taste of the remixed and remastered music used in the show, the soundtrack is available from Amazon and iTunes.
