Almost 40 years since they stopped making music together, the magic of the Beatles is still packing in audiences - at a Las Vegas casino.
I'm just back, still bleary-eyed with jet lag, from a couple of weeks' holiday in the USA, and for me the unquestioned highlight was my visit to see "Love", the Cirque du Soleil show based on the music of the Beatles at the giant Mirage hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

The Liverpool Daily Post broke the story about this show being staged in Vegas, and I had been intrigued by watching a South Bank Show documentary on how it had been staged, featuring Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and their legendary producer Sir George Martin. So a visit to this show was at the top of my US wish list.
I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. I grew up with the Beatles' music, and I have always loved it, but I still wasn't sure how I would respond to seeing a troupe of French Canadian acrobats leaping about to their classic songs.
I need not have worried. From its stunning opening, with the stage exploding in colour and showering the audience with petals as "Get Back" burst into life, through moments of haunting beauty and frightening aerial athleticism accompanying songs like "Something" and "Octopus's Garden", to its emotional climactic "All you Need is Love", this was a show to stir the senses like nothing I had seen before.
The combination of the original Beatles recordings, some of them given new arrangements by Sir George and his son, Giles, the extraordinary physical performances of the Cirque du Soleil, and the visually brilliant staging, was extraordinarily potent.
There are moments, as recordings of the band talking to each other between studio takes are played while giant silhouettes dominate the auditorium, when you almost feel as though you are witnessing a live Beatles performance.
The tickets aren't cheap, even with the strong pound, and you need to book ahead, but if you happen to find yourself in Las Vegas and you even remotely like the Beatles, I would warmly recommend this show to you.
I heard an interesting debate on the Tony Snell show on Radio Merseyside yesterday on the thorny subject of whether Liverpool trades too much on the tag of birthplace of the Beatles. For me this one has always been a no-brainer. The Beatles are the single biggest reason why the name Liverpool is instantly recognised across most of the planet. As we develop ourselves as a tourist destination, it would be foolish in the extreme not to take advantage of that.
I was delighted upon my return from holiday to catch up on the news that both Paul and Ringo will be taking part in our European Capital of Culture celebrations next year.
Not only is the Cirque du Soleil show one of the biggest attractions in Las Vegas, another theatre on the Strip features nightly performances by a live Fab Four tribute band. If Vegas can cash in on The Beatles to this extent, why not Liverpool?
If someone had the vision and the financial clout to persuade the Cirque du Soleil to bring Love to Liverpool, I reckon it would sell out for months, and draw hundreds of thousands of new visitors here. What a highlight that would make for 2008.

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