I think this years’ Night Beats was a huge improvement over last years’ show. That said, the main problem was the opposite of last year. This time, all of the Night Beats segments were shoehorned in awkwardly in what I think should have just been an entirely different show. “The Shadows of the Night” for example sounded very strange after a dark orchestral overture. Most transitions were very strange, but none as much as that change from dark to 80’s hit, to “just kidding, this is a Lady Gaga festival”.
The problem with making it a different show is that although it is Night Beats, it feels more like a rewrite of Monster Stomp: Revamped without the knives. Both shows were about vampires, but this took the darker tone of MSR. MSR was more comedic than Monster Stomp on Ripper Row, but it was obviously intended to be a comedy, whereas this show can’t decide what it wants to be. The tone skips around just as much, if not more than Monster Stomp:RR.
The biggest saving grace of this show is that the director seemed to know where the weak points were, and decided to fast forward through those unapologetically. That was brilliant in contrast to all previous years’ “Take Me Home Tonight” scenes. This time, they didn’t take two minutes to force a joke that probably wasn’t funny to begin with. Instead, they called the person selected before the show by name. It was simple, less awkward for everyone, and almost funny. The person was also not insulted upon returning to her seat.
The band in the center looked brilliant. It allowed them to create some very interesting color palettes with the lighting reflecting off of the gate surrounding them. It also dispersed the audio more evenly in the awkward acoustic space that is Das Festhaus. This just reinforces that the original stage designer(s) had the right idea all along. The only disappointment from this aspect was that they could no longer use the fire curtain which, granted, never shot straight last year with the new pyrotechnics team.
The show has many good elements and when you watch it, just be prepared to ignore the bad leftovers from last years failed attempt. Believe me, it’s much easier to ignore the bad with the cheesy dialogue being cut so drastically. All that remains has fitting background music that you can use to drown out the bad.
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