Criss Angel - Mind Freak

This story is insane! When Rick and the kids drove in to meet us at the Luxor, they decided to go to the upstairs portion of the parking garage. After they got out of the truck, Rick noticed that something was going on, so he walked over, and they were shooting an illusion for the Criss Angel Mind Freak show – once again, Rick has his moments! Rick happened to see how they were doing the trick, and they asked him to sign a waiver so that he wouldn’t talk about it on the internet. They were just about to let Rick and the kids in to see the trick, but with Me, Ray and Susan walking up they decided it was too many people. But the producer that was talking to Rick was from Louisiana, and he told us that Criss Angel would be doing some demonstrations in the Atrium in the Luxor around 7 pm that night. Bradley and I were too excited because we watch Criss Angel all the time – and we decided to check out the show. We all went in the Luxor and had lunch and some fun, then Bradley and I left to take Ray and Susan to the airport, and Rick left to take Ella home.

The traffic was horrible heading back to the Luxor, but when we got upstairs at the parking lot, Criss was still inside the blocked off area taking some publicity shots. Bradley and I watched from afar, and when he started heading back into the hotel, I told Bradley that I was too nervous to ask him to take a picture with us. Then I said “Hi Criss! My son and I love your show and we watch it all the time!” So he said thank you, and nice to meet you, and HE asked if we wanted to take a picture – so I dug my camera out of my new Harley Davidson purse, and one of his assistants took this. Isn’t it awesome?

At that time it was about 4:20, so Bradley and I had a LOT of time to kill! We walked around the hotel a lot, walked around the shops at Mandalay Place, and finally got smart enough to get a deck of cards to play with while we were waiting. Eventually we started seeing some of the producers for the Criss Angel show, and we started getting excited. We met a nice family from California that new about the taping, and another nice couple that had tickets to the Carrot Top show at 8:00, and saw that we were hanging around and decided to ask why. They had gotten married the weekend before, and they had spent all week in hopes of seeing Criss Angel. They finally gave up at 8:15 and headed into the Carrot Top show (but they gave us their cell phone number so we called them when Criss finally showed up).

Meanwhile we saw the producer from Louisiana again and I asked him if it was getting soon, and he said they were having technical difficulties so it might be a while. By this time it was close to 9:00, and Bradley was starting to have meltdowns from all the waiting.

Finally Criss Angel walks through the lobby and we all start getting excited! A real crowd gathers, but luckily Bradley and I, the family we met, and another guy that had watched the taping the night before and had been hanging out with us, all got in the front row of the crowd. I was furiously dialing the newlyweds, but they couldn’t answer their phone. Criss tapes the whole demonstration – which involved asking 4 people to participate (none of whom were us faithful people who had been there for hours). The four people initialed a playing card, and then shuffled the deck, then Criss threw the cards at a computer screen for the restaurant next to where we were, and the card ended up inside the computer screen. It was nuts! Everyone was freaking out and screaming, and I was thinking how cool it was because we were on the front row and would probably end up on tv!

Then Criss goes into the production office to watch the video back to see if he likes the way it turned out. His people had promised that he would take pictures with everyone afterwards, so a lot people were just hanging out and waiting for that. So Criss comes back outside and says he wants to tape the illusion again, but this time he changes it up some. Instead of picking the people, he takes his wristband off and throws it to a girl in the crowd, then she throws it up in the air to the next person, and this continues until they have 5 people. After 4 people, Criss wanted a girl, and the wristband was thrown to a girl standing behind me. I had to get out of the way to let her up to the front, so I was thinking – I’m definitely going to be on tv! They do the illusion again, and again they headed back to view the tapes. Turns out Criss needed to re-tape part of the illusion, but 2 of the people had already left, so he started over again. This time I caught the wristband and I got to be part of the illusion! It was so much fun! And while they were watching the playbacks, one of the producers fell in love with Bradley (and so did Criss’s brother J.D.) and they filmed him screaming “Mind Freak”. We can’t wait to see ourselves on tv! The only problem is that they just started production, and the shows won’t air until next summer.

Criss’s people said he would stick around and take pictures, but that he wouldn’t sign any autographs. We waited until the crowd died down because Bradley wanted another picture with him, then he took this one – too cool!

Then he also signed some of the cards used in the illusion for us – the one I had put my initials on during the illusion, and one for Bradley that says “Bradley – May all your dreams come true”.

Say what you want about Criss Angel, but it was a totally cool experience and Criss is an awesome entertainer and a very nice guy. Not too hard on the eyes, either!