Season 8 Tour Review with Pictures!

Hi Everybody,

So I wanted to do a short write-up about the tour (I saw it in Atlanta) and one of our readers sent us a link to her pictures from the Norfolk, VA show. Donna C. must have been on the front row because her pictures are ah-mah-zing! Clearly, her favorites are Melanie and Tadd, but she’s got a lot of great shots of everybody. 🙂 Well, done Donna C. and thanks for sharing them with us!

The tour shows are always high-energy, but Season 8 ramped it up about 100%. I don’t think a single dancer got to stand still for even 5 minutes during the show. Even when they were changing costumes, they must have been hopping and jumping back on stage. It was so much fun and so well-orchestrated that EVEN without the All-Stars and MARKO! it was a fabulous show.

I’d have to say that the best thing about this tour versus other tours I’ve seen is that those cheesy little bits with the dancers talking between routines were limited this time around. In fact, this was the only one, at the beginning (also the only time I can verify that any dancer stood still):

Melanie and Sasha do a little introducing

What they did this go-around was set up big sequences and incorporate several of the best (and new!) routines within the sequences. They would segue between routines with solos.

So, they would have a big group number, then a smaller group or pairs routine (often overlapping, with several couples on stage at once so there was no gap between numbers) and then a solo. Then, we’d have another big group number melting into smaller routines and another solo. It was always high-energy and entertaining. I didn’t feel like *I* had a chance to catch my breath all night, so I don’t know how the dancers did it.

My favorite moments:

-Melanie performed the statue routine on her own since Marko was injured and it was so gorgeous and poignant. She filled the space, but it also felt like she was dancing in his honor. She got a standing ovation in Atlanta (it was a hometown crowd, after all, but it was also spectacular).

-Ricky filled in BEAUTIFULLY for Neil (with Melanie in the “Total Eclipse of the Heart” routine) and also for Kent (with Sasha in the “Fool of Me” wall routine) AND Twitch (with Sasha again in “Misty Blue”). He was so good and not only filled the shoes of the All-Star who originally performed the routines, but made them his own.

-Nick was amazing. It was so good to have him on the tour and see him dance as much as he did.

-Almost all of the solos were awesome! They kept just building in intensity and I could see how much man of them had grown since the beginning of Season 8.

-The whole sequence that began with the wall of bars for “Please, Mr. Jailer” and also had the table on stage at the same time was so inventive and stellar. Some of my favorite routines were in that section of the tour (you’ll see it in the pictures) and there was some new stuff as well.

This may have been one of my favorite tours just for the sheer intensity. I didn’t get to meet and greet with the dancers afterwards due to weather, so I was really glad I got to meet them beforehand (and got all those hugs).

Check out some of my favorite of Donna C.’s pictures below and click here to see the slideshow of her photos.