Circus 2009
Posted by Miguel in Site News & Info, tags: phoenix, review, ringling brothers circus, us airways center, zing zang zoomThis was the weekend, the annual Ringling Brothers Tour was in Phoenix and as always I had tickets, I just didn’t get the Circus Celebrity front row, this time I opted for 2nd row, saved 200 bucks and got to see the entire show unlike when you’re the Celeb and are in the Big Top (cool) missing the action (not cool).
I have to start by saying it sucked not being there with Michelle but she was literally right next door working an event at the baseball stadium so she was there in spirit.
Anyway, Ringling runs 3 tours simultaneously (Red, White & Blue Tour) and this year was a rehab year so the tours have blended. For instance the lion act in Zing Zang Zoom (the show we saw today) is the same as the one from the last tour that was here last summer.
The show was overall good, not great, there were some really cool elements but for the most part I found this tour to be a little disoriented and not as tight as previous shows.It is billed as a ‘New Tour’ on their website but it bordered on bush league at times.
Right from the start the show opened with a a mis-queue, the Chinese acrobat troupe (Qi Qi Har Acrobats) started their aerial show for about 2 minutes, it was cut off mid stream for the elephant show, then the aerial show came back on right after. It was as if someone forgot when they were supposed to go on. I’m sure that most of the audience didn’t know there was a mistake but being from show production background with all the stage shows that I did in all the clubs I worked, it was obvious to me. I just didn’t expect this from this caliber show.
The dog show seemed competitive, there are actually 2 different shows both going on at the same time. The Hans Klose dog show and the Olate Family shows are very similar and very distracting since they both go on at the exact same time and within 20 feet of each other. I was expecting dogs from one side to go to the other but when that didn’t happen I realized they are actually 2 different acts and neither wants to give the other courtesy to let the other showcase.
The highwire act (the Lopez Family) was a little dry, nothing major that you haven’t seen a million times before. With the extreme ways people push these shows today, this was a very 1970’s act, more filler than anything.
The human cannons were again, very 70’s but cool, Hagan just about jumped from the chair and thought it was cool. If we would have been circus celebs we would have missed most of the warm up because the airbags would have been in our way.
The closer in the show was the Wheel of Death and the Fernandez Brothers. This was the only time in the show that I actually thought there would be blood! These guys were totally out of control and messed up more than once, in fact several times, they don’t work with a net and don’t have an airbag under their wheels so any mistake could be costly if it happened at the right part of the wheel spin and I’m happy to report it almost happened 2 different times. I’m more happy to report that nobody fell.
Overall Zing Zang Zoom is an ok show, a throwback to the Ringling Bros Circus of the past, not a lot of glitz and extreme elements but entertaining none the less.
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