Vegas Baby!

A short flight from Fresno and we land in Vegas. May as well be a different planet.
People can try and describe Vegas to you but nothing can prepare you for the sensory overload or sheer level of excess that you will experience in this strange desert city and gambling mecca.

We stayed at the Luxor hotel, a pyramid shaped building that is comparible in size to an average city suburb. It was rated at 4 star but could have done with a slight overhaul to be considered luxurious.

The first night was pretty special. Fraser has booked us some tickets to see Tears for Fears. They played Mandalay Bay which was the hotel next door to ours. They have an artifical beach there and the band played on a kind of island in the pool. Must have been just 1000 people in the audience so it felt pretty intimate. I was a huge fan of their first 3 albums. (We're talking knowing all the lyrics to all the songs) but after they split in the 90's and Roland carried on solo I lost interest. They played a few too many from the era for me but the old stuff they did play was excellent. Woman in Chains with a famles backing singer with a tremendous voice was the highlight for me.

For the second night had booked tickets to the Cirque du Soleil show "O". This rates of one of the most amazing spectacles I have ever seen. I watched the entire show with my jaw open. It's based around water ("O" = Eau = Water. Geddit?) They have this stage full of water. One minute there is a deep pool where cliff divers fall into. A few seconds later this is a solid stage there and acrobatics and stuff is going on. If you ever get to Vegas this show is a must do. I also checked out another show called Ka while I was there. Although this had an amazing stage that rotated and tilted every which was and some special stuff was going on there it wasn't as good as O.