We went to see Mannheim Steamroller at the Palazzo Casino on Saturday. I thought maybe we would start a new Christmas tradition. I really don’t have any Christmas tradition except if you can call the dog peeing on the presents under the tree a “Christmas” tradition. I was excited since I love Mannheim Steamroller Christmas music and their music is definitely a Christmas tradition every year. I bought tickets online, prices ranged from $70 to $135. Thankfully I bought the cheap seats because music is music and in my opinion it really doesn’t matter where you sit in the theater to hear music. After I purchased the tickets I realized that some of the music I thought was Mannheim was actually Transiberian Orchestra, “On this night, on this very Christmas Night!” Ok, I love Mannheim music too and both I read are from the same conductor Chip Davis, so that’s why the music sounds so similar!
We made it an evening, having dinner at the Grand Lux Café in the Palazzo right next to the Palazzo Theater. The Grand Lux (owned by Cheesecake Factory) has an extensive menu, from burgers to steaks and is reasonably priced and very good. Try the brie wontons and the crispy fried pickles, delicious!! After dinner we made our way to the Palazzo Theater. I couldn’t help notice that it looked like the bus from Sun City dropped off ticket holders. There wasn’t a person under 60 in this crowd. The theater itself is small and the seats are pretty tight. Thankfully the seats in front of us weren’t occupied so we had a clear view of the stage, which later I came to regret (more later on that). I started to have my reservations sitting there, the theater reminded me of a high school auditorium, none of the grandeur like the Caesar’s forum or the Mirage theater. The show starts with a cheesy film clip of Chip Davis behind which Mannheim starts playing. Ah, there’s the music! The music swells, the percussion chime, drums, snares, violins my ears are in heaven, until they start showing cheesy film clips again in what appeared to be very bad clips of animated Christmas movies and not even the classic ones like Rudolph or Frosty. More like very bad claymation from the 50’s. You almost expected Burl Ives to start singing. No HD here, video graphics were terrible! Then rings drop from the ceiling and performers do a very high schoolish performance on the aerial rings. Hey don’t they know this is Cirque du Soliel town and anyone who has seen a Cirque production would scoff at this amateur attempt? During the show, I started to fall asleep, that boring yes, (and I was battling a fierce stomach ache and headache which wasn’t help by the fact that on stage there were light props, no attempt to conceal them either) were pointed directly at the audience and shot out lights blinding one in the eyes. Several people around us were covering their eyes when the strobe hit us. Not a pleasant experience and very unsettling. Then performers dressed in fluffy down vest and matching woolen scarves,( were they an ad for Old Navy?) came on stage to horse around and do flips (why?). Come on, really? You’re Mannheim, you don’t need cheesy acrobatics, amateur production numbers and bad videos to support your music. They would have been better off just playing their famous music. Why ruin it? Goodness, this is the Palazzo, one of the more upscale casino’s on the strip, you’d expect this show to be on par with that image. NOT!!
