LOL...I was thinking the same thing..."WOW Criss Angel is posting on the Café!"

Should we start a campaign to nominate "Magicr8" as a featured guest of honor?

Race driver Mario Andretti had a twin an when Mario had facial burns at Indy his twin, Also posed for all the post race photos. Then Aldo crashed and broke his nose and no longer looked like Mario.

I too met JP's twin at a corporate gig we brought them into TO for many years ago (and the resemblance is incredible) - all of the cast were very professional and very friendly at all times. In fact JP did a very unique twist on a straight jacket release I will never forget.

Rick

I have heard virtually NOTHING good from pros who have seen Angel's Vegas show. I haven't yet seen it...any input?

It was ... interesting ...

Steve

I saw it too. Was bored out of my mind...good thing the theatre has a bar. On stage he had zero charisma. It was the first and only time I have seen anyome asking for a standing o. And THAT is sad and rude.

There are a Video on youtube where Pendragons fails an illusions, and there are a twin exposed... I don't know if he was the twin brother, but it's funny...

I have youtube blocked at office, but if you want to watch that video, I can post it later in here

saludos

I am sure many have already seen it and it won't do any good to repost it. We have all made mistakes in shows before, why repost somebody else's. If it were yours, I'm sure you'd be upset if other people continually brought it back to light.......even If it was DECADES ago.

Agreed.

I saw it in Sept. 2010. Here's my thoughts on it.

The pre-show was GREAT! The Maestro character was funny along with his small team. They were the ice-breakers/warm-ups for the night and did very well. The "fat" one climbed over the audience in their seats and he ended up sitting ON me! It was pretty hilarious, actually.

I LOVED the look of the theater - the dark and twisted bunny sort of thing was just way too cool! My excitement was palpable.

The show began and it was very cool to be barely 20 feet from Criss Angel! He looked good on stage and very comfortable. A heckler interrupted at times and Criss put him in his place a little rudely, but hey...the heckler is rude to interrupt. Personally I think it was staged as so much of Criss's stuff is...but if it was, then he did a great acting job on his part as I couldn't be sure (and usually I'm VERY sure when it's staged because Criss over-acts).

The show was supposed to be Cirque du Soleil style (and that's why the look was really cool), but personally I felt the magic choices were not the best. There are SO many directions he could have done with it but it felt that half the show was just a disappearance and reappearance somewhere else. He vanished, and appeared on the wings. He vanished, and appeared in a giant robot. He vanished, and appeared on top of a crate. Etc. etc. I would like to have seen a lot more variety of magic. He did a dove act which was very cool, IMO. Mainly because I loved the "look" of the thing. He did a sawing in half that REALLY was not good IMO - BECAUSE he didn't put her back together. He just put his assistant on a table, cut her in half, and they wheeled her off. I don't think Criss is original in many ways at all, BUT this seemed original because everyone ALWAYS puts the girl back together...because you SHOULD! lol. So I didn't like it and it left me feeling it was just half a trick.

Being fair - some pieces were sort of neat at times, but honestly the best thing about the show was the Maestro and the artistic design. I was SO bummed out that there wasn't more Cirque stuff put in - aerial bird-people flying about or something...I don't know. It was just a lot of Criss and it wasn't all that entertaining to me.

Artistic Design: 5/5
Variety of Tricks: 2/5
Originality of Effects: 2/5
Talent Level: 4/5
Stage presence: 3/5
Likeability of the performer: 3/5
Entertainment Value: 3/5
Value received for the money: 2/5
Overall experience: 3/5
Chance of returning to see it again: 0/5

Ok, so let me summarize by saying it was worth seeing once to say I did it. It wasn't horribly boring, but it wasn't NEARLY as good as Lance Burton or David Copperfield (both whom I saw that same weekend).

I personally am a fan of Criss Angel. Not a Loyal...but a casual fan. I LOVE what he's done for magic in that he's been on TV more than any other magician and really helped elevate the art of street magic. He brings this street magic flair to the stage and it works ok. It's NOT the same as a normal stage show and feels different. I don't enjoy a lot of his effects, BUT that's because he's had to sacrifice ideals in order to fill time on the air. NONE of us could have come up with that much magic without using a stooge once or twice. But personally I'd rather have seen less magic without stooges or setups. But hey...Mindfreak ran for 6 seasons...so he had to enjoy that time while he had it!

So all in all - I think he's worked really hard, come up with a couple really great ideas, but reused a LOT of magic and made the "mistake" of doing TV magic instead of real magic. That idealistic sacrifice really hurt him in the long run, I fear. Now when people don't know how he does things, they just assume camera tricks. And that's a shame...because MOST of what he does is NOT a camera trick in the sense that it can be performed for a live audience viewing from the same angle as the "at-home" audience.

By the way - I think the reason MANY magicians get mad about Criss's fame is that THEY know the same tricks and feel they can do them as well or better than Criss...but HE'S the one with a TV show and Vegas show!

When we all watched David Copperfield (or Doug Henning), we had no clue how he did half the stuff he was doing! Heck, when I saw David just in 2010, I STILL didn't know how he did some of that stuff! Absolutely AMAZING.

And as magicians we equate "you fooled me" with "you must be really good." Because Criss RARELY fools us, we don't think he's any good. And that's not really fair...because we can all see how the lay-audience loves him. He has lots of talent and works hard. I think he deserves the fame.

Matt,

I had heard similar reports. If his stage patter goes anything like his TV patter ("look look....look look"), then I could see where it WOULD be boring. Glad you gave us an honest appraisal.

Hope all is well, my friend!

It was DEFINITELY like his TV show - that's what people are coming to see, after all. They weren't there for a normal Vegas show. So he went with that. The difference is that it's hard to carry a stage show with a "street magic" flair. But he'll continue to improve over time. Hey, we all did. He wasn't used to doing stage work. He did TV work...very different.

He started onstage. Check out his history. He was good at one time.

Then he sold out.

You don't see many Magician berate David Blaine, Derren Brown, Cyril Takayama or David Copperfield. All famous and successful in their own right.

Because these guys didn't sell out with their Camera Tricks.

Matt...

I agree that he will likely improve the entertainment value of his Vegas show, or people will simply quit buying tickets.

I hope for his sake, and for the sake of magic, that he re-evaluates his show and does himself proud!

That's one thing I've heard about his show (though I can only comment on what I've heard since I don't plan on going back) - that he changes it up frequently to "fix" things. It's very different (even in 2010) than when he first started doing a Vegas show, apparently. Originally I think they had done more aerial sorts of things with wires (like Cirque always does) but people complained saying "We can see the wire!" and Criss was like...uh...cause we weren't trying to hide it? This is Cirque! So there was some misunderstanding and he decided to drop those pieces altogether.

Anyway, he's had tons of stage time now and hopefully has improved some more.

I don't think it's fair to say he's a "sellout" in the sense that he started resorting to camera tricks and stooges. That IS a valid side of magic, but not one that most of us want to consider. Again, it'd be very hard to do SO much magic in Mindfreak without resorting to those once in a while. That's why Henning/Copperfield/others did "specials" and not weekly series. It gave time to be GREAT and not just good.

Honestly (and I DO NOT mean this to sound arrogant in any way), but the main reason Criss isn't really my fav. is the fact he reminds me a TON of myself. Trying to be a bit mysterious, but deep down just fairly goofy. When I saw him on stage, I just kept thinking how I could do ANY of those effects (not necessarily thinking I could do them better...just that it wasn't "shocking" to me) - and that's back to my previous post thinking about his magic in general - magic that many of us could perform.

I think Criss has plenty of talent, but he may have missed out on some of the "legend" because he actually was SO prolific in his body of work. We can easily point to huge pieces of magic that Copperfield/Blaine/Henning/etc have done because they stand out as individual specials. Criss did SO much that his larger works tend to get lost in the shuffle (walking up the Luxor). What an odd "problem" to have, huh? Haha.

I hear what you're saying, Matt, but at what point do camera tricks cease to be magic and become special effects? Heck, we've all worked to achieve what we have...and I'm not saying Criss Angel hasn't, but I've got a television background, and if you give me some guy from a local community theatre, a length of green cloth and a green screen, I can make a "magician" out of him in half an hour.

Copperfield has never relied on camera tricks as a means to an end. He has certainly "fixed" some of his live shows in the editing bay and, of course, what we've seen in the live shows depends upon what the camera is pointed at...but that's just sophisticated misdirection, in its own way. Copperfield has never relied heavily on camera tricks. Seems to me, with what I've seen of Criss Angel, he does.

It's just not the same to me.

-Philip

I agree in part - but that's the point...Criss DOESN'T do camera tricks all the time. Sure he uses them (and I actually hate that) - but he's not a magician because he uses them...he uses them because he's a magician. There's a huge difference. So the part I disagree with is that you can "make a magician" in half and hour. Sure, he'll LOOK like a magician...but he's only doing camera tricks whereas Criss can do a LOT more than that. Does that make sense?



And that's why Copperfield is AWESOME. I think Criss broke a very important rule of TV magic - the rule that says if you can't do it the same way as for a live audience, then it doesn't really count as magic and it becomes special effects...which is NOT as impressive.

I really can't figure out why he'd do it other than that he was low on material and had to fill time.