Warning: Contains Spoilers from the Beatles Love show by Cirque du Soleil

Against the Beatle naysayers of the world, there is a well-documented list of ‘firsts’ that can be used to win the argument on technical points—first live, international satellite broadcast (“All You Need Is Love”, 1967), first use of feedback in a studio recording (John Lennon’s vibrating A string tacked onto the intro of “I Feel Fine”, 1964), first rock band to employ stadiums for live shows (started at Shea Stadium, 1965, ended at Candlestick Park, 1966), first rock musicians to mix amphetamines and strippers (the influence of amped, bored, Reeperbahn strippers on the Fab Four is often overlooked). That’s just a partial list, mind you, but it nicely illustrates the significance of the band to anyone who needs a reminder.

However, everyone I know that loves the Beatles does so not for their technical or cultural milestones. They love them for their music, which naturally includes their spirit, which naturally comes from their story. Loss and tragedy followed by success so huge it becomes a sort of tragic burden in itself—that is the band’s story. Pain, triumph, defeat, and victory for everyone who followed—in some ways, it is the archetypical martyred king legend. Much time and music has since passed, yet still the Beatles’ victory survives as a memory, and thrives as an influence, which takes us back to a winnable argument against those who feel the Beatles were pop stars and nothing more—a sentiment that reminds me of the Python quote: “What have the Romans ever done for us?”

A collective love for the Beatles’ music, spirit, and story (these words can be used interchangeably) is the lynchpin for the huge success of Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles Love show, playing for infinity (I hope) at the Mirage in Las Vegas. For Beatles fans, the show is a deeply spiritual experience. For fans of rock music, it is merely arresting. It is a very heady thing, and the music is the star (thank god) beneath which Cirque’s brilliant and colorful performers interpret the Beatles’ history and the evolution and demise of ’60s cultural movements. Put another way, Love is a live, Technicolor, surround-sound, historical documentary that swings. Because of this, much of the show’s visual symbolisms mean one thing to fans who know well the Beatles’ history and the ’60s, and mean something else only slightly less poignant to those who only know the band by there infinite loop of hits.

And if you’re anticipating four guys who can sing who happen to kinda-sorta look like the Fab Four, you will be either relieved or disappointed, depending on whether you approve of such pastiche. In Cirque’s temple of Love, such a thing would be considered sacrilege. George Harrison and Cirque founder Guy Laliberté had begun collaborating on this show before George passed. His wife Olivia, with the help of son Dhani, kept the flame lit, Paul and Ringo blessed the event, as did Yoko Ono, though perhaps not unconditionally.

This was not to be one of those county fair shows where four guys take the stage in moptop wigs and end the night in fake hippie beards. This is a show where the real Paul McCartney doubles the verse on “Come Together” from right over your shoulder. So clear, so intimate, yet perfectly mixed with the music literally filling the space around you that you can’t help but turn and survey the source of Paul’s vocal.

The show opens with a superb remix and remaster of the Beatles’ impeccable a cappella harmony piece “Because” while a chimneypot skyline—part Liverpool, part Saville Row rooftop concert—rises at the audience’s feet. The stunning sound quality of the vocals renders the audience pliable for transformation. This is followed by a mash-up of several key Beatles song moments, as if their life in music was rushing by. The mash-up parks on the groovy “Get Back”, mixed with bits from other songs, while the cast fills the stage with beautifully choreographed pandemonium. The music morphs into “Glass Onion”, at which point the cast of Love tears the skyline down. It seems to be pure Summer of Love mayhem with a cast of characters I sort of recognize—Father Mackenzie, Eleanor Rigby, the Nowhere Man, flower children, and blossoming youths, including John Lennon as a child. As the skyline is being destroyed, I realize that the mayhem is maybe not so innocent and carefree. The song ends, the lights change, and I quickly realize that the stoic, working-class England represented in that chimneypot landscape has been reduced to post-WWII London Blitz rubble. We are all back in the ashes that delivered us this band.

And that’s just the first few minutes.

It is at this point that I realize many tears will fall on this night. Not just from being moved by the art of Love in sight and sound, and not just from the melancholia of post-WWII Britain. Tears will fall because I know how this story ends.

Cirque seems to be aware of the fire they are playing with, and therefore carefully balance tragedy with triumph, similar to how the Beatles’ music inherently balanced Paul’s sweetness with John’s rebellion. As artistic director Kati Renaud states, “When one performs at Love, there is a strong feeling that they are not performing at ‘just another Cirque show.’ There is a part of you that is involved in the wonderful world of the Beatles, not just Cirque.”

The embodiment of Paul’s sweetness comes when the Sugar Plum Fairy meets a very ripe Lady Madonna during her namesake song. The Sugar Plum Fairy is played by South African street performer Michael Moloi, who has a smile that can cure clinical depression. Michael never heard the Beatles before he auditioned for Love. Asked about this, he says, “I never listened to their music before in my life, but the more I listen to it every day during the show, I feel moved by the lyrics, the beats, and the style. The more I listen to it, I hear new things!” Thank George Martin for that, and perhaps his son Giles, who won Grammys for their graceful remixing and mash-ups of Love’s music.