WOW…what a very humbling and incredible review we got while performing at the Kentucky State Fair. The following is from the office of public relations for the Kentucky Expo Center.
http://kystatefair.tumblr.com/
There are things that we, as collective humans, come across that make us happy, sad, cry tears of joy, shout expletives, nervous, cry tears of panic. Normally, we are in no place to experience this cavalcade of emotions. We are having a bad day. We are busy. We are in a hurry. We are here just for a good time. These things touch our lives and we never forget.
I wrote this immediately after walking out of today’s 3:00 p.m. Ridgeway and Johnson show. As you bloggers are aware, we, the blog writers, are people too. We like things. We dislike things. We love things. We hate things.
We, or I, love Ridgeway and Johnson.
The show is to be experienced, not reviewed for entertainment quality. Yet, regarding entertainment, this show had it all. Audience participation, humor, ridiculously awesome tricks (sorry, but “ridiculously awesome” just kept popping up as I watched the show three times) and a show finale showstopper guaranteed to make you look at your watch and look up… look at your watch and shake your head.
The entire show is a showcase of every illusion, magic trick, card ruse and the classic “stuff-a-pretty-girl-into-a-box-that-my-3-month-old-son-would-struggle-to-fit-in.”
The 3:00 p.m. show ended in a fashion befitting $100 seats at the MGM Grand (in Las Vegas). Kristen Johnson, the world’s premier and only current female water torture cell escape, performed her signature trade. Bound with two Smith & Wesson shackles and padlocks galore, Johnson jumped into the 140 gallon tank on a single breath, but not before a simple, quiet moment with her husband (the other half of their name, Kevin Ridgeway). One cuff at a time, Johnson removed her shackles.
Let’s not leave any room for disbelief. Every single second that passed by, as a spectator, was gruesome. I felt for her. I longed to leap out of my seat at every wince and grab an ax to bust her out. But quietly and with a couple shakes of her head, Johnson managed to ease closer to taking her next breath.
I won’t spoil the end because it simply cannot be missed. It cannot be described effectively enough.
We loaded up the trailer last night and got the motorcycles strapped in. We’re now driving 17 hours to Houston, TX. We have two shows on Sunday at The Woodlands, East Campus. The show will kick off with our latest opening effect of Kristen appearing in the air upside down. This newest piece was unveiled in West Palm Beach, FL in January and has been rocking ever since. Of course Kristen will also do her signature piece, her Full View Water Torture Cell. After that I will share the true story of Kristen’s incident, the last chance I had with my father before he passed away and the impact it has had all over the country. See ya in H-Town.
Kristen and I had some down time and took advantage of nice weather and twisty roads. We hit the curvy roads of southern Indiana and really tore it up. The best part of the day was a fellow Buell sport bike rider checking out Kristen’s tires. He was quite envious of Kristen’s non existent ‘chicken strips’ For those that don’t know…a chicken strip is the unused portion of motorcycle tires. This area is unused, because the rider only travels in straight lines and doesn’t know how to take corners. It’s always great to see Kristen showing up the male riders LOL
