After seeing the SOI ads on tv for weeks, I finally said to my skating buddy "I think we'll really regret it if we don't go to this show!" The venue is less than 25 minutes from my house, so why wouldn't I go?! We REALLY got our money's worth. The small venue made every seat a good seat, and we decided on the $90 seats, not super close to the ice. I may be going out on a limb here, but I think this was possibly the best ice show I have ever been to! Fun to meet
@reader3! I'm sure if we had time, we would have been able to commiserate about skating for a long time!
Loved the cast (nice to see a few skaters other than U.S. skaters), great costumes (ok Nathan, we did see a few of those sparklies on your costume! LOL), enthusiastic good-sized crowd, nice use of the rink-side tv monitors throughout the show, great pacing of the programs (not a long wait between numbers). liked the way they had loud bombastic numbers but some soulful balletic type programs were interspersed in there too, and many other things I'm probably forgetting. My love will always be with the tension and pressure of competition, but it was nice to sit back and relax and enjoy! Nice to see that the skaters weren't bogged down by all the requirements they have to do during a competitive program. Loved the choreography of the group numbers. It's great to be towards the end of the tour where the skaters have (by now) really gotten the choreo down pat. In the group skates, movements were sharp, crisp, energetic, confident.
Jason's hometown crowd was out in full force, and (as always) he did not disappoint! So happy we got to see his "Impossible Dream" program. Wow, Nathan still has it! Fun to see his amazing speed and flow across the ice. He is SO fast. Both he and Jason looked like they might get speeding tickets. LOL. Thoroughly enjoyed Piper & Paul's "Evita" and a program to John Denver songs. Oh, Alexa and Brandon, do you have to retire?! They looked great! Throws, spins, etc. They definitely didn't water down their content. Alexa had quite a few hometown supporters present too. Satoko was ethereal. Loena was a great combination of sass and speed! Chock and Bates skated like the World Champions that they are...Ok I'm getting carried away, this is getting long.
Kurt -- what can one say about Kurt! Many aspects of the show paid tribute to him, and he certainly does deserve it! What a career and a legacy! He really knows how to make the ice work for him. Oh, that footwork! Makes me long for them to bring back the straight-line step sequence. I'm going to have to take some time to look at his old programs. Thx for the memories, Kurt!
Bottom line, if you're in the last three tour cities (Baltimore, Boston, or Hershey areas) and trying to decide if you should go -- GO!!!!! You won't regret it.
Adding--I see what was written above about STROBE lights. I've NEVER liked strobes and find them so unnecessary!
). After all of these years of watching skating on TV this was my first SOI. I missed the glory years when skating was on TV every weekend.
I was SO happy that we chose to sit farther back and had 2 empty rows in front of us. Still, they were decent seats.
