Old Vegas. New Vegas. I switch between the two so often I sometimes wonder if time—or anything else—really divides them: Maybe they are just marketing categories. Tourists of any age old enough to gamble find their tastes catered to in abundance here. No one is discarded. On any given night, the Strip offers a diversity sorely missing elsewhere in our culture (like on formatted radio and demographic-obsessed music video channels). Not to get too sentimental, but this is the thing I love best about covering entertainment in Las Vegas.
Another thing I love is that this unintentional experiment paid off. People come here willing to see the sorts of shows they normally wouldn't back home. We're in Vegas, so why not? Hipsters who, anywhere else, would be seeking the Strokes in a club, come to Vegas ready—indeed eager—to see Tom Jones in a showroom. And plenty of folks who like to keep the dial tuned to the station that plays Faith Hill and Toby Keith arrive in Vegas wanting nothing more than to check out Celine Dion.
So, no surprise, one of my favorite New Vegas attractions is Richard Cheese, who does lounge versions of songs by the likes of Dead Kennedys and Nine Inch Nails. And he isn't alone. Back in 1997, Old Vegas stalwarts Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme recorded a lounged-out version of "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden for the Lounge-a-Palooza compilation.
"The song was a piece of garbage," Gorme recalls.
Lawrence adds: "We asked them if this was really the song they wanted us to do. They said it was, and so we said OK, then, and asked if we could do a different song."
Whatever their initial reservations, the result has become a cult classic. When Gorme sings "no one sings like you anymore," it is impossible not to hear her lamenting the passing of an era. Of course, if there is some pathos, it is equal parts camp, as when Steve Lawrence—pitching his voice somewhere between Sinatra and Bennett—offers up some particularly deranged lyric like "call my name through the cream and I'll hear you scream again." Hard to say how to take the song, but either way it is entertaining.
I recently spoke to Steve and Eydie, Las Vegas residents, because after last appearing as the final act to close Caesars' showroom a few years ago, the team will finally perform here again next month at the Stardust. Over decades headlining on the Strip, Steve and Eydie have literally seen them come and go. And though associated with Sinatra, Lawrence's first LP didn't come out until 1958, which, of course, was after Elvis had already recorded the sound of the future at Sun Studios.
"Honestly," Eydie Gorme says, "I thought it would be a fad. Now, of course, I like quite a bit of it. But then, who knew?"
It wasn't like they were ever hostile to rock ("Black Hole Sun" aside). Lawrence notes that his television show was the first network program to have Janis Joplin as a guest. So though the classic American songbook and old-style pop form the heart of the duo's repertoire, they literally spent an entire career in the rock era making music out of its time, while having an unbelievable number of hits along the way. Lawrence alone had 21 hits in the Top 100 in the years leading up to the British Invasion. To Steve and Eydie, the divide between Old Vegas and New Vegas comes down to camaraderie.
"In the old days we would go to each others' shows or sometimes just show up." Lawrence recalls the time a janitor entered in the middle of their show and became annoyed that the audience and performers were still in the theater. "The audience was surprised, and then they figured out it was Sammy (Davis Jr.), and he came up on stage with us. We didn't know he was going to do that. It is the kind of thing that happened all the time that you just don't see anymore."
I thought about how true that was the next day as I sat through the latest in New Vegas: Beacher's Comedy Madhouse at the Hard Rock. Beacher announced his arrival with a stunt similar to Sammy Davis Jr.'s, though the results couldn't have been more different. Dressed as a maintenance worker, Beacher snuck into a fish tank at an MGM Grand restaurant to promote his show. Beacher was banned for life from the property.
The least original thing about the Comedy Madhouse is the comedy. Beacher instead creates a wild scene, a controlled happening, an event around a stand-up comedy show to create a mood of excitement totally beyond the entertainment value of the performance. Sitting at Beacher's show feels like being at the center of what's happening in Vegas. Mixing elements of a freak show and a sex show with the comedy, Beacher has managed a monster success that has the longest lines of any event I have ever seen at the Hard Rock.
More than the individual performers, the Comedy Madhouse is all about the atmosphere. Audience participation is loud and frequent, and often what is going on in the audience is another show unto itself. Take my little corner of the Joint. The girls at the table next to me got up and flashed their boobs to the audience, winning a free bottle of champagne. One of them, Kimberly, 23, a personal shopper from San Diego, shared her drink with me. Soon she was telling me we were soul mates. Maybe so, but Kimberly's friends were not feeling the love and were trying to get her safely away from the Madhouse.
"I never act like this," Kimberly told me.
"We got to go," a friend said, pulling at her. I gave her my number.
If Kimberly ever calls me, I am going to take her to Steve and Eydie. Because if Beacher is where you can loosen up and meet someone, I am guessing Steve and Eydie is where you can romance her. Besides, Old Vegas, New Vegas, I love it all, and when I do meet my soul mate, I know that she will, too.