Putting Poetry into motion
Psych! OPM pulled a fast one on you, Vegas. Love and Money—the purported new name of OPM following its renovation and reopening—will just in fact be the name of their Friday night party. Poetry, as the new club will actually be called, will open as planned in the Forum Shops on Friday, October 5. According to partner/director of marketing Branden Powers, the misdirection was intentional, a ploy to keep would-be copycats and competition in the dark (though a last-minute midstream horse-swap of this kind is odd). Decorated to look like “the devil’s mansion,” as Powers puts it, Poetry is awash in chocolate hues with black and red accents, as well as black sheers, roses and black-crystal chandeliers. A newly installed stage, located by the dance floor, doubles as a VIP section. Actual poetry will play into the club design as lines of calligraphic verse will appear everywhere from the napkins to the ceiling to the floor and walls, including the works of Edgar Allan Poe and, interestingly enough, the Marquis de Sade. Those classic quotes and excerpts will give way to the more modern words of hip-hop and rap poets like Tupac Shakur, bringing Poetry into today’s market.
A Fight for Fame update
A Fight for Fame, the 12-week statewide battle of the bands, has moved on to Round 2, in which the surviving bands will have to demonstrate their range. “Round 1 is always considered a learning curve for any band that has never competed in A Fight for Fame,” says AFFF creator and founder Matthew Lindsey. “Round 2 is innately harder because the judges are looking for a band that can be diverse without losing their sound and identity. Bands make the amateur mistake of treating AFFF like another concert, putting forth no extra effort to impress the judges or their fans. They have to be creative with their music set, lighting, crowd interaction, etc. to set themselves apart from the other bands performing, as well as to remove the image of familiarity in the judges’ minds.”
The competition is hell-bent on finding the next big band to come out of Las Vegas, and the first-place prizes—including 50 hours of recording-studio time, a promotional photo shoot and airplay on Area 107.9-FM—are intended to help the winner go all the way.
Round 2 gets underway this Sunday at the Icehouse Lounge and will continue select Sundays throughout the month and into November. For more information, go to www.AFightForFame.com. The bands making it to Round 2 are: Sunday, October 7: Otherwise, The Skooners, Age oV Reason, The Opera and Solidify; Sunday, October 21: Ashbury, Six Shooters to the Sky, Brother Luke and Theory of Flight; Sunday, November 4: Forget McCarran, Slow to Surface, Indulge, Conflict of Interest and Verbatym.
Mandalay’s new center bar unveiled
Eyecandy Sound Lounge & Bar is putting the power to entertain into the hands of the party-goer. When the construction walls finally come down around Mandalay Bay’s 13,000-square-foot center bar for the Friday, October 5, soft opening, guests at the lounge will be able to draw on the Sound Lounge’s touch-tables, sending their creations (as well as personal messages) to the screens above the dance floor. At one of three sound stations, guests can pop in their own iPod, giving the DJ access to some new tunes. The aural-visual stimulation continues as go-go dancers activate more changing imagery with their feet while playful patterns and animations are projected onto their bodies. At the bar, fiber-optic cable runs throughout, creating a shimmer effect beneath specialty cocktails created by the world-renowned mixologist Tony Abou-Ganim. Eyecandy’s bar will open daily at 11 a.m.; the Lounge swings into action at 6 p.m. And unlike other center bars, Eyecandy will employ a dress code; while casual chic, the presence of a dance floor does warrant a little fashion pomp and circumstance. And, interestingly, this Steelman Partners-designed bar is nonsmoking. A first, indeed!
Vegas comes out on top, down under
It’s official. Las Vegas knows how to mix a drink better than any other place on Earth. At least that was the judgment at the annual Cocktail World Cup, sponsored by 42 Below vodka. Sin City’s best barmen and women competed against 13 other countries in a unique series of extreme bartending competitions before emerging the champion. The event also hosted cocktail summits with some of the world’s most illustrious cocktail experts.
“This year is No. 4 for the CWC, and it’s been bigger than ever,” said 42 Below founder Geoff Ross. “We’ve brought together the best bartending brains on the planet, and in return, they’ve created some of the finest drinks on Earth.”
But none were better than what Anthony Alba, Eddie Perales and Gaston Martinez of Team Vegas came up with. “Amplextremo” was the concoction that ultimately claimed victory for Sin City’s mixologists. The cocktail’s recipe reads like Thanksgiving dinner combined with the formula for cold fusion, including potato puree, maple syrup, pumpkin pie spice, dolce de leche, 42 Below vodka and a garnish of strawberries frozen with liquid nitrogen. Thankfully, that mixture beat out the other teams’ outlandish ingredients, which included sheep’s cheese, chili and eggs.