There was a time when Amy Winehouse was being looked at as a possible Vegas headliner. Her voice was compared to Aretha Franklin while her delivery and sound were contemporary. No, she was not Fiona Apple. But who knows what happened to the recording career of Fiona Apple? Still, Winehouse held a lot of potential. [...]
Elton John’s return to Vegas was a bigger surprise than Celine Dion. For one thing, Dion’s return wasn’t a surprise. The promoter and casino had been publicly yearning for Dion since the moment she left Vegas. John’s “The Red Piano” was also a success at Caesars Palace Colosseum. But John seemed to tire of the [...]
Her show does not open until next month but yesterday Celine Dion showed up and Vegas groveled at her feet. When she first came here in 2003, people wondered about her ability to sell tickets at prices that sailed as high as her irritating voice. Now she is a rare sure thing for Vegas: a [...]
In an interview former Caesars headliner Bette Midler compares working in Las Vegas during the recession to being aboard Titanic. But the most damaging story Midler offers is about customer service. Las Vegas used to have the best customer service in the nation. Now, after more than a year of indebted casinos companies, such as [...]
A friend e-mailed to tell me she had seen a pathetic infomercial of Criss Angel hawking his magic kit. There is a pretty amusing clip of him doing same on some shopping network. My head got dizzy as host and magician could not even keep clear if the kit was a $250 value or had [...]
Some have argued Jackson is not the singer on “Breaking News.” I am convinced Jackson’s voice is on the track (apparently heavily augmented by posthumous studio trickery). The sound might be constructed around a punched up vocal never meant for release by Jackson. But this is not a clip job. Jackson’s signature is clear from [...]
Footage posted from Rod Stewart’s opening show at the Caesars. If you are a fan of Stewart’s you probably don’t care that his voice sounds just awful on “Forever Young.” The chorus is painful as he gets inaudibly weak or his voice skitters off kilter. Mike Weatherford teases out the question of Stewart’s vexed relationship [...]
Not exactly fact checked by Letterman. Dion did not take a break from her Vegas show for her twins. Her show closed with no set plan to return. The replacements announced: Cher (hard to forget since she is still performing) and the middling Midler show. Dion’s show closed, and she is returning with a new [...]
I have seen the future of Vegas, and I don’t mean Madonna. Very little seems a sure thing in this town, but I am positive guitarist Yuto Miyazawa would be a sensation on a Vegas stage. Oh, he is 10 years-old. Child performers are almost always novelty acts who grow-up and out of their careers. [...]
A long time ago I became aware that Criss Angel had a permit to carry a concealed handgun. He was living at the Luxor when I found out. And, despite the fact that I was disturbed that he could be armed at any given moment, I don’t make the laws of Nevada and Angel apparently [...]
