From Brandon Sterk

!cid_image004_jpg@01CA71C6, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. Took my family to the RBBB latest offering--Zing Zang Zoom (Sorry I don't have the little trademark symbol thing on my keyboard to put right behind the title!). For all the complaining I do about how much this show has changed over the last 10 years, I have to say, its still the best circus around. Yes we'll probably never see a spec like the ones of the 70's and 80's again and they probably won't ever bring back the 3 rings, but for what its work, I thought they put on great show this year. Now in the 4th year of the new "ring less" format I think they have really improved the flow and quality of the show since the 'Circus of Dreams' show a few years back and seem to be perfecting this new format. I thought the showed moved a super fast pace, sometimes almost too fast, my one complaint is that the Ringmaster or 'Zing Master' never really announced any of the acts or when a new act was starting, you had to really pay attention. Additionally, they didn't even announce the show like the "Welcome to the 139th edition....." the show just sort of starts, and all of the music and vocals need to be turned up much louder. But other than that, there were some really exceptional acts, we loved the opening act which was some sort Ariel display on the silk things--it was presented really well--this was followed by the 2-ring horse display with the inflatable rings. As we made our way to the end of the first half, there wasn't even an attempt at a spec (or not any I could see). However one thing I think was funny was that for the past 4-5 years they have been offering these circus celebrity seats, where you basically get to sit in some spinning tea-cup type car and parade around the track and watch the a few of the acts, but this year instead of that they just bring the circus celebrity's out to sit on some bleachers set up at one end of the arena which was probably a good seat for the little magic act that followed but for the next 2 acts (high wire and some moving platform trapeze thing) they probably could have seen much better from their seats they paid $100 a pop for! The 1st half ended with the traditional double cannon (which usually closes the show). The 2 second half moved really quickly too, I was amazed at how quickly the floor crew set up the cage for the tigers and still think the cage being lowered from rigging above is pretty cool to watch (my kids were more enthralled by this than the 2 people who were some how dancing on a platform upside down ( I cannot for the life of me figure out how they do this). I think the tiger act was one of the best acts of the night and Tabayara Maluenda now in his 3rd tour with the red show is a real star ( 20 years ago he could have been huge!). The elephants followed soon after and this was probably the highlight of the evening--while it wasn't 20 it seemed like there was more this year than in the past and I think the Red Show carried at least 3 or 4 more than the Blue show. The show closed with the wheel of death--which was really good and then before you even knew it they had come out for a VERY quick finale and were gone. Overall I thought the show as really good--the lighting and everything was beautiful, the Red Show really had a challenge on their hands in moving on without Bello--(who my 4-year old kept asking me all night where he was!) . My 10 year old daughter who over the last few years has become a really big fan of the circus insisted on going to the show in clown makeup. Unfortunately because of the crazy Chicago traffic were late getting to the "clown college" preshow..but I managed to flag down one of the clowns for a picture and he was blown away by my daughters outfit and went backstage to grab a bunch of other clowns who all wanted their picture with my daughter. Just as I had experienced as a kid the RBBB clowns are still a total class act and totally made her evening. For the first time in several years I really did feel like this was the "Greatest Show on Earth" (and for that I'll give Mr. Feld a pass on the still outrageous prices on cotton candy and snow cones!)/