Coverage of the Cirque Beatles Show "Love"

Interesting thing that no one has really discussed about all the worldwide coverage of the new Cirque du Soleil Beatles themed show Love: The coverage is vastly different by those who are of the era where they grew up with (and tend to revere) the music of the Beatles as oppossed to those from a younger generation who may be familiar with it but didn't have it as the soundtrack to their lives. Las Vegas Review-Journal Mike Weatherford: "Now, you did understand the exploding Volkswagen symbolizes the band breaking up?" Gilles Ste-Croix asks after Tuesday's performance of the new Beatles-themed opus "Love." Uhm, well, sure. Of course. Truth be told, I had still been chewing on other aspects of the climactic number, "A Day in the Life." You can see by now that "Love" aspires to be more than just spectacular eye candy. The blessing and the curse is spectacle may be all many ticket buyers expect, and all that they will receive. Like "Ka" before it, Cirque's attempts to turn the corner into more substantial theater may be lost to those who can't tug the shirtsleeve of a director to explain things after the show. The Independent James McNair: That The Beatles' digitally restored voices have a definition hitherto unheard outside Abbey Road studios is unmistakable. When the opening chord from "A Hard Day's Night" cedes disoreintatingly to the orchestral crescendo from "A Day In The Life", moreover, it is similarly clear that no one is playing it safe here. Wisely, Cirque's treatment avoids chronological narrative and literal interpretation of Beatles songs. Instead, they opt for "a timeless, three-dimensional experience", their mostly frenetic, often surrealist production alluding to Beatles events such as the 1964 landing at JFK airport, and their final roof-top concert at Savile Row, London. As The Martins put it at one of the press conferences, "This is not a standard musical a là Mamma Mia!" The Cirque Beatles Show "Love" is the hottest ticket in Las Vegas and looks to stay that way for a long time. Beatles fans consider it a must see, but after the initial buzz wears off, will the show attract the under 50 crowd (which makes up more than half of all Las Vegas visitors) who come for the nightclubs and "what happens in Vegas" activities? Time will tell.