Today's side deal offers a multimedia experience even more mind-expanding than reading Gravity's Rainbow by the light of a Game Boy while listening to an iPod at the movies. For $15, you get one ticket to see eighth blackbird perform Slide at the Harris Theater on Wednesday, March 24, at 7:30 p.m. (a $30 value). To redeem your Groupon, bring it to the will-call area before the performance to exchange it for a ticket. To be seated together, buy your group's Groupons all at once.

Composed and performed by Steve Mackey and eighth blackbird, Slide explores the seduction and manipulation of the American psyche, as told through the story of Renard (played by actor/singer Rinde Eckert), an enigmatic psychologist who seems irrevocably altered by his own experiment, which involves reactions to slides that go in and out of focus. As Renard struggles to describe the results of his experiment and how our own habits and conventions can cloud our vision, the Grammy-winning ensemble weaves the experience into a rich tapestry of sound, image, text, movement, and human emotion.

Reviews

The Grammy Award–winning eighth blackbird has garnered the respect of many a critic. RVA News and Letter V both sing the praises of Slide:

• Even in this era of widespread multi-media, genre-splicing, mash-up style experimentation, [Slide] offers a unique and mind-bending experience. – Bryan Hooten, RVA News
• ...[composer-guitarist Steve] Mackey’s music veers between dreaminess and assertiveness, and draws into its mix most every style of art and pop music heard in the past century or so. The ’birds negotiated every stylistic twist with aplomb and made the most of solos and cameos... – Letter V