Not exactly “Thriller”……..

So my family went to see Cirque De Soleil’s Michael Jackson performance last night.

Ahem.

It was not at all what we expected.

We are lovers of Cirque De Soleil and of Michael Jackson’s music. Separately.

Together – Not. So. Much.

First of all, it is not a circus. It is a tribute concert. Yes, I would have loved to have known that several months ago when I decided family time was more important than college savings.

And to make it worse, it is a tribute concert with other people singing Michael Jackson’s music.

Ahem.

No one will ever sing his music as well as he did. It was a rookie mistake to even try. And their interpretations of many of his songs gave them a hard rock tilt. Ick.

Second of all, the show was minus the trademark “performance” aspect that has made Cirque De Soleil famous and, ahem, worth the money.

Speaking of money. This show is not cheap. At all.

The other things I did not like….

The bright stage light that shone directly in my eyes for about 5 minutes.

The fact that one of the men portraying the members of the Jackson 5 was Asian. Nope. Not kidding.

The pole dancer. (She was skilled but I have now paid – a lot of money – for my son’s first pole dance performance and have shown both of my daughters that you can in fact make a career out of that type of entertainment. Nope. Not fabulous.)

The gates to Neverland that took center stage for most of the first half of the show. Why even go there? It seemed in poor taste.

The very loud music.

The very large screens that constantly played videos that completely distracted from the human performers.

Just about everything else.

To quote the guy sitting next to us, “I could have paid $35 and seen that caliber of a show at Kings Dominion.” Ouch.

It wasn’t all horrible. There was an amazing disabled dancer. And a contortionist who contorted beautifully.

But that’s it.

We left at intermission and since it was 20 minutes long, we had plenty of time to skedaddle.