Exhausted from eating so much the day before (Thanksgiving—I love pie), not sleeping, then waking up needlessly early to get to the deserted airport on time, I boarded my flight for Las Vegas. It was virtually empty. A few guys sitting across from me a row or two back were my closest neighbours, and funnily enough, they were flying out for the show too. After a pleasant flight with the exit row to myself, my good friend John from Australia picked me up from the airport and we deposited my luggage in his room at the MGM. His girlfriend Jill came up from breakfast and gambling and we drove a few miles off the strip to a shooting range. It was packed! Jill and John both purchased packages which allowed them to shoot a few different firearms for 50 and 120 dollars respectively. I’m still technically a poor graduate student on a budget so I just hired one round on one gun, which cost about 25 dollars—not bad if you want to just shoot something a little and don’t care what. We picked our targets—mine was a charming wife-beater-clad stud with a mullet. We had to wait in line with our ammo and our paper targets with the masses. A nice family of Taiwanese stood behind us, and I talked to them. We had a good laugh about life in China, and the father lamented Chinese skills of his ABC children. The father looked almost exactly like one of the ‘bad guys’ in one of the selectable targets, and we chuckled about that, too.
When we got to the front, an instructor introduced himself, had us gear up in noise-cancellers and safety goggles—John was playing shocked at the ease of the shooting-a-gun process and made some snide remarks about American culture and cringed every time he heard an automatic going off in the range. We went back, and our instructor brought us our guns (MINE WAS PINK!), gave us each instruction with our guns, and helped us take pictures with our targets. All in all, it took only about 10 minutes to shoot off all our rounds, although we waited in line for 40. (Still totally worth it.) I shot my target in all the important places – forehead, jugular, and, of course, the nips. John and Jill got free t-shirts with their packages, then we met up with Simon and went back to the MGM to freshen up for the show (I still smelled like airplane). We went to the Rouge bar in the MGM, met with friends, got a little goofy (thank you tequila), and eventually shuffled with the throngs of people into the arena.
It was my first time seeing the show again since Philadelphia, and I was excited to see the changes. I noticed a few of the musical changes—I particularly like the new riff in Run Like Hell. I also noticed a much greater passion in Dave K’s guitar playing, especially during the Comfy Numb solo where he noticeably threw his body (and rock-star hair) into his playing. Robbie also showed a bit more “oomph” in his Comfy Numb bit, though I’m still not a fan of his creative warbling in The Show Must Go On. Although it’s been mentioned before, from the first show I saw in Chicago to the show in Vegas (and now, 2 weeks later) Roger has been increasingly amping-up his role of an impassioned fascist dictator during the second half of the show, and I must say, I really love it—more so each show—I’m not sure if he could over-do that to my satisfaction. It was the first time I saw the new animations for Goodbye Blue Sky and Comfortably Numb – it adds quite a bit.
I also pointed out the new pictures during Brick in the Wall pt. 1 to Simon – one of them of Roger’s family. (But he doesn’t listen to me, so he didn’t notice them until I pointed them out again in LA) – There was so much that was new, and honestly, while I enjoyed all the previous shows, from Vegas onward, I’m personally enjoying the shows much more—it’s hard not to!
Unfortunately, the end of the show left me completely “knackered,” as present British company would say, and I passed out cold as soon as humanly possible. Don’t worry – it was in a room on a bed and NOT in the middle of the halls of the MGM, although my enduring memory is how incredibly ridiculous leaving the MGM venue was—thousands of patrons funnelling through one tiny corridor. I suppose I’m lucky I made it out alive.
-Kami <3
