SPOILER - Caesar's Palace Reviews

[SpyNote]

Bootylicious... Much like how the TISL tour started out.

Dreams (dance remix)... My first thought was, is this The Corrs?? But no! It's a brand new vocal from Stevie set again dance beats. It was quite hip. Visuals of the I Can't Wait (of Stevie walking in slow motion against the white background) are shown throughout this segment. Lots of cheers from the crowd.

Enchanted... Much like previous performances, though Stevie actually sang the whole song, including the "wo wo wo...I hope you make it/ay ay ay I hope you make it," instead of walking to the side of the stage to play her tambie.

Stop Draggin' My Heart Around... Much like previous performances, Waddy doing Tom's part. Backdrop: "metal vines" and some rare mug shots maybe done by Herbie?

Outside the Rain... The first "surprise" of the night. It was nice to hear again, but it was a little lackluster. She didn't really belt out the end, and sang it in a much lower voice. Backdrop: "furious raindrops"

Dreams... Always a crowd pleaser. No surprises. Backdrop: "wavy lines in shades of red, orange and green.

Rhiannon... Scott Plunkett serves up another dark piano intro, leading into a standard rendition. Backdrop: "drawings of a porcelin-like boy, statues, and two white unicorns playing and running in the water" (very odd).

Sorcerer... Much "punchier" than the TISL live version. She sounded much more comfortable this time around. Backdrop: "kaleidescope"

Stand Back... Stevie came out wearing a different "Stand Back" cape, at least one she doesn't usually wear. It was black, had tiny glittery circles and what looked like fringe on the ends. Her hair was in a bun, similar to how she looked during "Sara" for SYW, with a small black bow/scrunchy. At the end of the song, she said to the crowd "time of your life." Background: "frantic black and white matrix/grid ending with (unnecessary) laser light show"

Landslide... "You may know this song... It would love it if you would sing along. It would take a little pressure off of me." A new arrangement, with Waddy and Brett Tuggle playing guitar, that was TOTALLY influenced by the Dixie Chicks' cover. Sharon and Jana sang harmony vocals in the chorus, similar to how the Chicks did it. Backdrop: "chandeliers that looked like jellyfish."

Gold Dust Woman... Stevie came out draped with a white/pink shawl. This rendition was a little reserved. She replaced the climactic "go hoooooooome" with a growling "ay ay ay ay." Backdrop: "A dizzying blue spiral" in the beginning and ending with "yellow 'fireflies'"

If Anyone Falls... Next surprise. Lori discreetly joins the other singers to sing on this song. The image from the video of Stevie and dancer Brad Jeffries is looped over and over again. Backup singers introduce some weird, new choreography involving their hands (I'll bet it was Sharon's idea).

Band intro... Big "welcome back" for Lori and continues to intro the rest of "The Three Birds of Rhiannon." Jana Anderson: "the little ball of love" Sharon Celani: "the dark woman" Waddy: "he's my angel"

Fall From Grace... Like on Sorcerer, Stevie is much more comfortable with the TISL material. The "make sure you surviiiiiive" part was a little weak, though. Backdrop: "white clouds moving very fast in the blue sky"

How Still My Love... Another surprise. I thought this was a great rendition. I would have preferred that she have dropped some of the rock numbers in favor of the slower numbers which seemed to fit the Vegas 'Dreams' motif better.

Drum Solo... Ho hum. Though I thought the new drummer (Jimmy Paxon) was pretty good.

Edge of Seventeen... Lights circle the stage slowly at first, then become more urgent when Waddy's riff kicks in. Backdrop: "visuals of Waddy from the Sorcerer video" and "one huge black and white white-winged dove." During the "Edge walk," Stevie made her way into the crowd as usual, but she let fans KISS her on the cheek!! There were at least three fans who got up close enough to plant sweet lil pecks. Some hugs too. When they asked if they could kiss her, Stevie replied "of course." Wow!

I Need to Know... Kind of looked like she was wearing the Gypsy outfit from the '82 In Concert vid. Moon necklace was very noticable here when closeups were shown on the big screen. As usual, no "take your violet and blue mornings" just the "....with you!" at the end of the song.

Beauty and the Beast... HIGHLIGHT OF THE EVENING. Definitely the emotional highpoint of the show. I haven't seen Stevie pour this much emotion into a song in years. She was literally shaking and getting VERY emotional. She was wearing a full black cloak which was fuzzy on top (it looked very similar to the burgandy one from the TISL press shots...the "alien/Star Trek outfit." Some lyric variation: "timeless is the teacher who is wise."

Overall, good show. The generic visuals, probably lifted from Celine's show, were totally unnecessary and often distracting. It was much more interesting when they had closeups of everyone displayed, which they only did occasionally.

Sharon was hanging out after the show in front of the Colosseum. Sweet sweet sweet sweet lady. Everyone was just so excited to see her that I'm afraid we probably overwhelmed her a bit. But she was very gracious and even agreed to take pictures with us. When fans talked about their stories, she listened closely and replied like she was actually interested. What a class act. She was there with us for a good 10 minutes. I told her that we appreciated her long replies in the Q&A. She said that it took her forever to answer them because she isn't a very good typist. Jana Anderson on the other hand types really fast apparently.

[Johnny Stew]

Thanks for the review/description, Daniel... I really would have loved to have seen this performance. "Beauty And The Beast," especially, sounds like it was outstanding.

I'm still holding out hope that they film one or two of the shows for an official DVD release.

[SpyNote]

Lead guitar/musical director: Waddy
Lead guitar: Carlos Rios
Bass: Al Ortiz
Keyboards: Scott Plunkett
Keyboards/guitars: Brett Tuggle
Drummer: Jimmy Paxon
Percussionist: Machito (why do these guys only have one name??)
Singers: Sharon, Jana, Lori

There were two t-shirts on sale for $30. Two colors: black and brown. Front says "Dreams" in Stevie's handwriting with drawing of a heart with hair coming out of both sides (like heart pigtails) underneath it. Back had the tour dates written in a colosseum with an oval image of Stevie from the the back of the TISL CD (Sharon and Lori cropped out) on the right side. It was an unattractive t-shirt, the back in particular. Ugly fonts, ugly design. Probably the work of Chris Nicks.

[SpyNote]

One more thing...the show was captured on DVD. Not officially, of course

[tynan88]

[Gypsy-Rhiannon]

Originally Posted by SpyNote

One more thing...the show was captured on DVD. Not officially, of course

Oh my!!!!

And thanks for the detailed review!!

Pip

[BombaySapphire3]

So the 'never before seen' and highly vaunted "Dreams" show consisted of a few different shawl changes,a couple extra spins and a cheesy video show borrowed from Celine interspersed with a few clips from Stevie's old videos and not a single song that had not already been performed on past tours. I think I'll treasure my memories of old Stevie and Mac shows past before I plunk down any more cash on any of these foul rip off schemes.

[eclipse]

Thanks Daniel for the very detailed review- Honestly, from what I read, it was more or less what I expected it would be. I'm glad to hear she seemed happy and in her glory (as she usually is ,when preforming "live") I don't think the girl can go more than 6 months without being on stage...In my heart I think her addictions are still alive and well they are just more public- It's not cocaine anymore...it's live performances
The setlist was comprised of tunes that she could/should have played from the sound of it, and her vocal range was where everyone expected it to be.
There is a part of me that wishes I could have seen the show but again, sometimes the illusion and the dream is better, and more imaginative.
So I sit at home and read what is happening and enjoy others' opinions.
(I still would have loved to hear -I need to know-, I still BELIEVE she wrote that song, not Tom
Anyway, thanks for sharing....
warmest wishes
~~eclipse~~

[GODDESS6]

Originally Posted by SpyNote

One more thing...the show was captured on DVD. Not officially, of course

ENUF SAID!!!~

[whitesoxx]

Although I considered flying to Vegas from Europe, I decided not to, because the plane ticket would have been ridiculously expensive. And now I have read the reviews I'm still sad I can't be there, but not heartbroken. I am REALLY glad I got to see Stevie on the "Enchanted" tour where she really made an effort to do something different. I guess we'll have to live with Stevie performing from the same pool of songs until she retires...

Fortunately, I do get to see Stevie with Don next month, so hopefully "Highwayman" WILL make it into the set-list then!

[ShangriLaTroubl]

So was it the black dress or what??? How was she dressed??

Chris

[Cour]

Thanks for taking the time for such a detailed review, Daniel! Hope you have a great time at your other shows

[jkmaletic]

Thanks for the review!!

Question though...did she walk around a little with the mic? If not, no biggie. I'm just curious.

~Jamie

[catinthedark]

Wow, Daniel, thanks for the details. Made me feel like I was there. Glad you had a great time - sounds like Beauty and the Beast was worth the price of admission alone.

[estranged4life]

Originally Posted by SpyNote

One more thing...the show was captured on DVD. Not officially, of course

kinda figured it would, By the usual suspects of course.