VegasChatter

Cirque du Soleil must have known how excited folks would get because the show kicks off with screaming girls, an unseen announcer stirring up the crowd and some audio of Elvis himself laughing. The lights are flashing, the girls are screaming, the anticipation is about to cause the whole theater to explode and then the girls strip down the stage curtains (which are decorated with gold records) and the show kicks off into Blue Suede Shoes.

Most of this number was group dancing that was not really out of the ordinary. There was an Elvis on stilts that made us cringe, partly because he was cheesy Elvis with big hair and a white jumpsuit but also because the acrobatics here were not that great. We did like the presence of the live band though.

The next song, One Night With You, featured two young acrobats in blue jeans and white t-shirts doing some mild swinging tricks off a giant guitar. We were terribly confused about this part, although visually it was beautiful. What did this represent in Elvis' life? Why is a lady at the piano singing? Why are there two Elvis'? Are they going to make out? Why does one fall away and the other rises to the top of the guitar? Then we learned it's about Elvis' twin brother who died at birth. So yeah. You need to really know the life story of Elvis to get this one.

The final song that we saw restored our faith. The Col. Tom Parker character tells us in the beginning that Elvis was always reading comic books so for the Whole Lotta Loving song, superheros descend from the sky and begin some crazy trampoline jumping. We loved this part. It had a great song behind, great energy from the acrobats and we couldn't wait to see what they would do next. Also, this firmly plants the seeds for Cirque du Soleil to do a Spiderman show.

We've got a little video here of the press conference with Priscilla Presley speaking as well as a snippet of two of the numbers that we saw. The press conference with Cirque's Guy Laliberté and Priscilla Presley was very much about "bringing Elvis home." We know the show is a work in progress, as Priscilla said, but with that kind of promise, there's no room for disappointment.