Well tonight was the night for Brisbane (Thursday the 13th - it's now past midnight) and the show was amazing!
The music has lost nothing in the last 20 years at all, and in fact I doubt I've ever heard it as loud as it was tonight either (despite 2 x Sony amps in my lounge room), they sure didn't spare the decibels! The subwoofer system was pretty damn good, some of the visual explosions really rumbled solidly right through the floor in a clean, bassy way and not like the usual "overloud underclean" bass that can be common these days.
The performance consisted of 2 parts, with the break for a 20 minute ro so intermission obviously aligned with the gap between the 2 original albums, each part consisting of approx 50-55 minutes of light and sound spectacular.
The background "animation" that ran on a super-super wide screen right acros the entire rear of the stage were pretty stunning. Some of it was illustrations form the album cover, at other times it was newsreel film or similar of crowds and streeta reas, there was new CGI animations - so many different effects. The much touted "holographic" presence of the now deceased Richard Burton as narrator was inspired and very cleverly done, I do believe that Richard himself would have overwhelmingly approved.
(At the end of the show when all of the performers were brought back on stage and introduced they also asked for a round of applause for Richard - his effigy smiled and winked knowingly - it was a nice touch!)
I think the crowning glory really was the "real" 30 foot tall martian fighting machine that stood astride the front stage area for much of the night, complete with glowing green "canopy", smoke effects and it's own flashing heat ray! Luckily no audience members were incinerated.
The Brisbane Entertainment Centre looked to me to be a sold out venue tonight, however we bought our tickets online only 24 hours ago and had great seats! We requested (and paid for) "B" reserve seats but were seated in what was definitely the "A" reserve area - back row, rear of the "layered" floor section, dead centre, a great location to be!
For anyone who has a performance upcoming in their town I'd say if you liked the music then really REALLY try very hard to go, it was fantastic!
(Now sitting at work, leafing through my program booklet - which has a 4 page 3-D anaglyph centrefold - $25 gets you the program plus a set of 3-D glasses!)