Monday, Nov. 8, 2004 | 8:18 a.m.
Yanni must be paying his musicians by the smile.
How else to explain the sickly sweet grins affixed to the faces of every member of the headliner's 26-piece ensemble throughout Saturday night's show at the Mandalay Bay Events Center?
For some of the instrumentalists, the apparent delirium didn't stop there. Exaggerated head bobs were the norm during most solos, some of which also featured silly dance moves.
While I'm all for musicians enjoying themselves while they play, something about the over-the-top nature of this crew's expressions and actions didn't sit well with me.
It just didn't seem natural, as if they were hamming it up for someone other than the crowd of 6,500 in the arena itself.
Oh, that's right, Saturday's show -- the first night of Yanni's 24-date, 2004 North American tour -- was being filmed, for future release as both a concert DVD and live CD.
That probably explains the band's histrionics, though I suppose it's possible that every Yanni show is filled with the same sort of laughable behavior.
Either way, it's difficult for me to understand what the players were all so happy about. After sitting through the nearly three-hour event, I'm no closer to understanding Yanni's musical appeal than I was going in.
Toss the lighter side of classical, some smooth jazz, a few world beats, a little New Age and "Up With People" into a blender, and out comes the sonic milkshake that has made the 49-year-old native of Greece so successful for nearly two decades.
Why has that recipe worked so well? My best guess is that people listen to it because it's easy on the ears.
A few of Yanni's numbers featured grand, anthemic keyboard buildups, the type of effect you might expect in a soundtrack to a film about marathon runners churning for that extra mile.
And several musicians in the band deserve recognition for their obvious instrumental skills, most notable violinist Samvel Yervinyan and flautist/saxophonist Pedro Eustache.
For the most part, though, Yanni's fare reminded of Muzak, the stuff you might hear in a dentist's chair or an elevator. Close your eyes -- and I had to try hard not to -- and it would be easy to drift off.
Now, while I'm not naive enough to suggest that everyone out there should listen to edgy hardcore punk or adventurous free jazz, I have a tough time believing so many people demand such little challenge from their music of choice.
At the very least, I'd hoped for some mind-blowing production elements.
Maybe we'd see Yanni on a tightrope above a pit of fire, his long black mane spiraling as he conducted an orchestra dodging flying lava. Or how about a real, live indoor storm, complete with lightning to add an element of danger to the proceedings?
Not exactly. What we got were lights and lasers, the latter in the form of garden variety green trajectories.
The band performed from a set designed to look like classic Greek architecture, featuring gothic pillars and curved staircases. Yanni stood in the foreground, alternating between a three-sided stack of synthesizers and a black grand piano.
The man spoke little during the first half of the show, then began to open up after a 15-minute intermission, revealing the origins of several compositions.
"This next song ... is about appreciating life," Yanni announced at one point. "As we all know, life is very short, and it's also very fragile."
I knew something bad was about to happen when roadies brought a second drumset to the foot of the stage, and I was right. Drum solos have run their course even at rock shows, but for some reason Yanni decided his concert needed a really, really long one.
The crowd responded enthusiastically, though, and went even more wild when a man ran out with a didjeridu, an Aboriginal instrument that looks like a large, straight tree branch. When the man blew into it, a noise came out that sounded like, well, a man blowing into a large piece of wood.
But everybody loved it. In fact, they all seemed to love everything about the show until the very end, when Yanni returned for five curtain calls, bowing and blowing kisses to the audience, but left without performing an encore.
Apparently, another episode staged for the DVD.
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