DC- Wow.

Through a strange chain of events, I found myself sitting front row at the David Copperfield show last night. The show was not something I particualarly wanted to do. I have little interest in magicians (or even illusionists) so the fact that the theater was at least 3/4 full of actual paying attendees made my excellent seating that much more ridiculous. And to add to the crazy, I also was taken backstage before the show to meet the man himself.

Ah, such a pleasure I have never experienced! (Rolls eyes.) There were eight of us backstage and we were lined up against a wall when The Man Himself burst into the room for all to admire. He made his way down the line, shaking hands and then stood before us and forced us to say how wonderful he is. I was in shock, but with only 8 of us in the room silence would have been inappropriate. Wow. Narcissist much? He was with us for maybe a minute and then we were escorted back to our seats.

At our seats we were treated to a large screen scrolling DC's many accomplishments such as "Only living magician to appear on postage stamps" and "Forbes Top 100 Highest Paid Entertainers list past 10 years." Then the lights went down, the smoke and spotlights started and we were treated to several minutes of video clips of every movie and television show that has made reference to David Copperfield. Again, I was kind of in shock...

Finally, DC appeared in all his glory. He made the entire audience stand and bow to him. I threw up in my mouth a little. The show finally started for real. I was surprised to find I enjoyed it! A car appeared from nowhere, a wadded tissue danced, was folded into a rose and then turned into a real rose, a ring was tied to the laces of a baby shoe in his back pocket, several audience members disappeared on stage and reappeared on the balcony seconds later. He did an extensive stunt with random numbers and facts shouted from audience members that showed up on a piece of paper, an audio tape and stamped license plates. My favorite part was when one of my group was pulled to the stage to hold a container with a live scorpion for a card trick in which the scorpion pulled the correct card from the deck.

My least favorite part was a video in the middle of the show of some stunt from years ago (DC still had a mullet haircut) in which he was escaping from a straight jacket while dangling upside-down over flaming spikes. Um, Dude. We just saw you 5 seconds ago. You obviously were successful and didn't die or get terribly injured. I have no problem with you taking a short break, but maybe switch the video to the Statue of Liberty disappearance or some other non-death-defying illusion.

Eh, I'm being too negative because I didn't like the man himself. It was a really fun show and despite not wanting to go in the first place and being kept up past my bedtime, I'm glad I went. It was definitely a new experience. I doubt I would ever pay to see an illusionist, but I've already stated that magic is not one of my interests. A strange, unexpected event in my life that probably would have been the pinnacle of someone else's existence. Too bad it was wasted on me :)