Live Review : Las Vegas (NEV, USA), August 22th, 2008

Still no picture of the show per se, sorry, since it's another HoB that strictly forbids cameras... Instead, I played "spot TH mentions" during my stay.

House of Blues, Las Vegas

the wait

We went to Vegas the day after the L.A. show, so we had a good - but short - night of sleep to recover. For lack of planning on our part, our hotel was downtown, very far from the Mandalay Bay where the House of Blues is (that's close to the airport). We arrived at the HoB early on Friday, looked around for a queue, saw nothing except a few probably-fans sitting at a Starbucks. We had breakfast at the HoB (nice service), then waited around in case a queue would form. It did. While I was away for a break. We got numbers in the #30es like in Frisco. But the queue was not as relaxed.

spot TH mentions #1

The HoB staff looked surprised and stressed out by the amount of queueing, and the Mandalay Bay staff was also on their back as the venue is inside their casino. The girls who tried to organize the queue were... I don't really know what they did and who decided to move the queue around 4 pm in front of the entrance, leading to in-line bag search and ticket checking. Uh... I've seen better organisations, considering how broad the line was at this point.

That was the fast lane for those who had priority access after buying something over $25 at the HoB shop, like me and a few hundred others... Funny, that. Staff at the venues may look contemptuous while TH is playing to a crowd of mostly hysterical fangirls, but I'm sure they will still gladly invite them to play, because their fans are so dedicated that they do, in mass, buy extra stuff if that can grant them a closer sight of the stage.

It must have been my lucky day, because a mother I'd chatted with during the long hours of wait offered me to wear the 4th badge of their VIP table of 3. So I got to be one of the first allowed in the venue, with her daugher, and we took place at the front row bareer near the middle, on Georg's side. The pushing wasn't hard before the show started. A security guy even managed to make sure that a girl on the 4th row, whom he'd asked to get out of the crowd to deposit her camera at the checkroom, could get back at the exact spot she was at before.

It got worse afterwards though, as the girls behind me were either petty about not having had the front row, or with me being French. They tried several times to squeeze between me and my neighbor or to plant their elbow in my back. Especially before Black. Uh uh. Such a lovely crowd. Hey, a hint : if I've traveled that long for a decent helping of TH, shoving me away from there would take more than that. It would take you to be so violent that you'd be caught and ejected by security. Also, second hint : when you plan a "bitch team" action, be more discreet, because I heard you plotting beforehand, so I knew what was coming and prepared myself.

I think someone did resort to that on someone else, though, as apparently a few people were evacuated from the middle during the break before the encore. One of whom appeared to be so not because she had fainted, but rather because she had caused the other one to be injured. But I didn't catch what happened exactly, because I was busy writing down a note while leaning on the ramp. Uh... Last minute impulse at realizing I'd probably never again be in position to throw something on the stage. So I scribbled a few words on a paper, rolled it and threw it on stage. The security guy looked at me funny after that.
At least I didn't write my phone number or anything like that on the paper.

the show

spot TH mentions #2

Something new before the show : the curtain hiding the stage sported a giant white TH logo. Cool. But no camera to immortalize that. Sucks.

I feared Bill would outbling himself for Las Vegas, but thankfully he didn't. He did wear the shiny silver jacket at first, but once he dropped that, he was reasonably bling-ed. The wide nailed collar he'd been wearing for the entire US tour, I think (bitten before you left Germany, honey?), one heavy silver chain, and a nice T-shirt with a winged tiger-head pattern on the front, split by a zip, with added zips on each shoulder. Kept wondering if he'd customized it or bought as is.

spot TH mentions #3

Due to a combination of factors, I ended up letting my... ridiculous fan flag fly. I started by scribbling a little "FRANCE" sign that I pasted on the bareer before me (I had joked around about it to the French fans I made the trip with, they were all for it). And well, like the note at the end of the show, it looked like I would never have another occasion to do it, so, "leb die Sekunde" and all that. Not sure it was taken as the encouragement it was meant to be though, as, if the twins did see it I think, they seemed more... disturbed than anything by it. Not majorly freaked out, but still.

Before the first encore, the girls behind me started to shout "Weed-en Weed-en Weed-en". If I hadn't heard them explaining that at earlier shows in line, I wouldn't have understood that they were, in fact, trying to get the band to sing "Reden". In vain, as I have yet to hear about TH improvising deviating from their set list... (maybe they did at the Eiffel Tower show, but only they and their management knows). And doubly in vain, as there's no way the band would have understood what they were shouting, considering how it's not how it's pronounced at all. Then again, I figure it's not so much out of love for the song that they asked that one, but rather in hope that Bill would pull up his shirt a little. *roll eyes*

Due to that, and since the girls in question had been such... good company during the show :P , I didn't bother telling them that they were saying it wrong. And I started shouting "Heilig" at the same time to blur it some more.

Then figured that since I still had the pen & paper used for my flag, I could make another sign while the band was still backstage. So I did. And during the next song, I held a "HEILIG" sign to the guys (low, so that it wouldn't block the view from the behind. I'm not THAT MUCH of a shameless selfish fan. Unless you piss me off). Which, I think, managed to confuse them again, as far as I could see. *sigh*
I swear, there is no hidden intent behind that. No, I'm not trying to make you feel bad about not singing German. It's just that I happened to realize that you didn't play "Sacred" on this tour, and I missed it, and I'm more used to call it Heilig than Sacred. Period. Okay, I do have a reason to like this song especially, but it's got nothing to do with you.

spot TH mentions #4

I swear if I ever have another occasion to make a sign, or an occasion to talk to them, I'll choose the message "I really like your music". Because that, either, doesn't seem to go without saying. *roll eyes*

No specifics that I can recall... I didn't see Tom a lot since he was on the other side, except, as always, on Live Every Second when he switches sides with Georg. And plays with his guitar. Though if I recall, it's not the same guitar he uses in Europe for it, so he doesn't do quite the same thing with it. Tss tss...