MJ lives on...

Last March (2011) we were at a tennis match at Madison Sq garden and saw an electric banner ad for a Cirque du Soleil "Michael Jackson - The Immortal World Tour" in April.  Ash had not long before seen his first Cirque and really enjoyed it so we were keen and came home and booked tickets the next day. We didn't realize it was actually for April 2012 until we printed the tickets and so we knew we had to stay in NYC for another year!

Last night was the big night, and it didn't disappoint...  For me anyway ;)

Ash and I were arriving separately so planned to meet at our seats.  I was running late - and a little distracted on my crackberry - so headed up the same entrance that we have used literally every time we've been there, all the way to the nose-bleed section, thats seating level 400 and 7 escalators up!  and it turned out to be the wrong entrance...   I was on the exact opposite side of the arena to where I should be, but not wanting to miss the start of the show I thought I would be able to go all the way around the arena on the walkway behind the seats.  I came to a point where I couldn't go any further and, as I started to climb over the empty seats (behind the stage) a security guard (SG) stopped me.  "Where are you going",  in my best Aussie accent "I'm lost and am trying to get around to section X."  SG "No your not", Me "Sorry?", SG (whispering and acting like a state secret) "Shh, your going to downstairs, these tickets are for level 100, use the fire escape to level 1 - go now..."

Well it took me all of 5 seconds to start moving, calling Ash at the same time to say "trust me, leave your seat and hit the fire escape, I'll meet you at Level 1" - Comp seats, in front of the stage, on plush seats instead of plastic...  Nice!   You hear of this kind of thing happening but it never happens to me!  

So on to the show - 

For any MJ fan you couldn't help but have a great time.  It was more dance numbers than any other Cirque but there was still the acrobats, tumblers and aerial artists. There was constant giant footage/images of MJ, all the favourite songs and some moving moments with songs like 'Ben', 'Gone too Soon' and 'Will you be there'.  There were shouts from the crowd "We love you Michael", just like you were at a MJ concert. Ash laughed when I said this later, but there was one moment so electric, for a split second I thought the man himself was going to appear and make a comeback! All finished off with indoor pyrotechnics.  What a legend! 

We miss you Michael....

See video here:

http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/michael-jackson-tour/default.aspx

Loving NYC

Another long time between blogs.  What can I say? I'm slack.  But Ash does such a great job keeping you up to date (even if he forgets the spellcheck) that he monopolizes the mac... - no, that's just another excuse.  Anyway, I had the greatest feeling last night that I want to remember so that's prompted me to write (I hope I have subscribers left to read it!).

On the weekend we changed our clocks for daylight saving and the weather seems to have changed with it!  Last night we were able to finish work earlier than usual and we came home and took Dasha to the dog run in Washington Sq park and it was still light, and even warm!  Not quite thongs and t-shirt but close!  The city feels like it has come to life again, there are daffodils sprouting in the park and all the cafe's have tables on the sidewalk and last night the whole population was out enjoying it.  It was a great feeling now that its time to pack up the puffer coat and snow shoes and we are really looking forward to another summer in the city.

Another reason for this blog is to share a fun week we had last week.  We headed to Madison Sq Garden twice in 3 days.  "The Garden" is only 2 stations for us on the subway and we have seen all sorts of different sports and concerts there including, the Rangers ice hockey, the Knicks basketball and Bon Jovi.  We are going in a few weeks to see a Cirque du Solei Michael Jackson Spectacular which should be fun too.

But back to last week, on the Saturday we saw world class gymnastics at the America Cup.   I had seen it advertised on tv only a few days earlier and thought how we don't have the chance to see this level of competition back home.  Lucky I have an open minded boyfriend who would come along, even though we had to negotiate how long we would stay :)  In an Olympic year, what an awesome opportunity to see the reigning women's world champion (Jordyn Wieber who won and outclassed all but the other American) along with an Aussie (ok, I'd never heard of her...) who did her best but after coming off the beam, came 7th out of 8.

The men's comp was also exciting, there was a really animated coach who after each apparatus danced for the crowd and we couldn't work out why because his guy (an American) was pretty middle of the group throughout.  On the final apparatus he did an unbelievably dynamic high bar and ended up winning the whole thing!

We backed this up on Monday night and headed back to a tennis night where Maria Sharapova played Caroline Wozniaki and Roger Federer played Andy Roddick.  Never quite the same atmosphere or pressure of a Grand Slam but they certainly put on a show and competed hard for the win. (Sharapova and Roddick won). Check this out to see the atmosphere at the Garden

Just another week in NYC.....