Pianist John Jones joins his partner at the South Coast, one of Las Vegas' newest dueling piano bars.
Pianist Bill Ryan performs at South Coast. Dueling-piano acts have found great success in the valley recently. Photos by Craig L. Moran.
Plays well with others.
That's a prerequisite for a successful kindergarten career -- but it's also a must for Las Vegas' dueling pianists.
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In practice, the "dueling" adjective seems a bit of a misnomer, because the duos performing at Las Vegas' five regular venues -- Harrah's, Hooters, New York-New York, Paris Las Vegas and the South Coast -- seem more "dual" than "duel."
And some of them are more dual than others, from Harrah's Piano Twins -- identical twins Kimberley and Tamara Pinegar -- to the husband-and-wife team of Van and Cristina Walraven, whose current gigs include the Sunday matinee shift at New York-New York.
Van Walraven remembers Las Vegas' first dueling piano bar at Main Street Station -- because he played there when it opened in 1996.
That outpost lasted about eight months, he recalls.
Once New York-New York opened in January 1997, however, Las Vegas' dueling-piano era was here to stay.
Almost a decade later, New York-New York's Bar at Times Square still packs 'em in -- even with a cover charge (the only one in effect at local dueling-piano venues) and a doorman controlling access to the beery, cheery, standing-room-only crowd inside. (Onlookers can stand outside and soak up the music -- along with a taste of the rowdy atmosphere.)
To paraphrase that dueling-piano staple, Billy Joel's "Piano Man," it's 11 o'clock on a Saturday and the regular crowd does far more than shuffle in.
After all, whether they're at New York-New York or Paris Las Vegas, the South Coast, Hooters Hotel or Harrah's, they're part of the show -- requesting songs, standing on the chairs, dancing around the pianos.
One woman doffs her bra -- ever so discreetly, without flashing any skin -- and deposits it on a pianist's head in response to an offer of free beer.
A couple on the eve of their wedding joins in a risqué version of "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." An intergalactic variation on "Copacabana" sets the scene "at the Star Wars, Star Wars cantina -- music and blasters and old Jedi masters ..."
And hearty sing-along choruses greet each musical selection, whether it happens to be "God Bless the U.S.A." or "Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw?"
Walraven describes the typical dueling piano bar song list as "everything from Bach to rock, from Tchaikovsky to Tone-Loc."
At the South Coast's Del Mar Lounge, "one day they're playing Sinatra tunes," notes marketing director Tom Mikovits, and the next night "it might be AC/DC and '80s rock."
Such all-ages appeal makes the format "almost like Romper Room for adults," observes agent Mark Barrett, who books pianists at the South Coast. "You can have a grandma drinking an ice tea or a frat guy with a beer."
Adds Suzanne Trout, marketing vice president at Harrah's, "It always surprises me how broad the audience is in musical taste and age." That explains, in part, why Harrah's remodeled its La Playa Lounge in 2004 specifically to accommodate a dueling-piano act.
Whether patrons wear cowboy boots or flip-flops, "people love to be part of the show," comments agent Steve Beyer, who represents more than two dozen pianists performing at Harrah's, Hooters Hotel, New York-New York and Paris Las Vegas. (At least 20 of them live in Las Vegas, he estimates.)
"Karaoke was the first part of that" interactive entertainment trend, "but this is an even stronger version," Beyer says. "Nobody has to carry the whole song -- and everyone sings along."
At Harrah's, "It's like spring break every night," according to Tamara Pinegar. "We actually stop playing" at certain points in a song, allowing audiences to take over.
"It seems to be a lot easier to get the audience to respond and participate when there are two people onstage," notes John Jones, musical director at the South Coast's Del Mar Lounge, who also performs at New York-New York and Harrah's. "It's almost like calling for back-up ... there's strength in numbers."
Beyond the audience interaction, interaction between performers is equally vital, according to "Lucky" Lee Hendler, one of Jones' South Coast colleagues. (Hendler came to Nevada last year after losing everything -- "I only left with a bag of clothes," he says -- when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, his former home.)
"That's kind of the funny part of it," Hendler says. "The best dueling piano player is the best person to collaborate with."
In essence, "it's really musical improv," Walraven explains.
And not every experienced pianist can do it, Beyer contends.
"A lot of piano players can play the numbers," he says, "but not everyone has the energy it takes" to succeed at "the trick of the interactive."
Most of the time, Hendler notes, "the key to failure is trying to please everyone." But "dueling pianos is the exception to that rule," he adds, because it enables the performers to demonstrate their musical range.
"I know thousands of songs and the show changes every night, so I don't get sick of playing the same 30 songs," pianist David Mauk comments between sets at Napoleon's, Paris Las Vegas' dueling-piano venue.
The shows may change nightly, but certain requests keep popping up. "Bohemian Rhapsody," for example. Or "Old Time Rock 'n' Roll." Or "Brown-Eyed Girl."
Some pianists don't mind repeating numbers.
"I'm not playing the exact same note the exact same way every time," Jones points out.
But Pinegar admits "there are six or so (songs) we know we're going to get requests for," she says -- including, inevitably, "Piano Man."
Of course, Pinegar "could play 'Piano Man' a thousand times and I would still love it -- it's a great song." (She does admit to tiring of one dueling-piano staple: "Sweet Caroline.")
At the other end of the spectrum: the "stump-the-band" requests, which Walraven describes as "the big anthem numbers," including Billy Joel's "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" and Meat Loaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light."
Knowing them "doesn't mean we can't be stumped," Walraven says. He knows about 3,000 songs -- and figures he can satisfy about 85 percent of patrons' requests. (His longtime friend Jones knows about 5,000 songs, Walraven estimates.)
Some songs may be the same, but each dueling piano bar has its own unique atmosphere, whether it's the Del Mar Lounge's laid-back vibe, Harrah's home-town tavern style or Napoleon's elegantly furnished space.
"That room is very beautiful and sophisticated -- you can't be getting people up on the chairs," Beyer says of Paris Las Vegas' piano bar.
Unlike New York-New York, where some folks stand on the chairs -- because, at times, there's just no room on the floor.
That indicates the increasing popularity of the dueling-piano format in Las Vegas.
"Pretty soon it's going to be like the buffet," with one at every casino, Walraven jokes. "It's a real crowd-pleaser that works for a casino mentality."
Harrah's Trout echoes that assessment, noting that "our biggest regret is that the room's not bigger."
Reflecting dueling-piano opportunities in Las Vegas, "some of the best people in the country have moved here," Barrett points out.
"Vegas is the new mecca" for dueling pianists, Walraven contends.
Hendler, who's already bought a house in Las Vegas, understands why.
"This town lends itself to 24-hour entertainment -- I can't be in a mom-and-pop town, a beer-and-peanut town, where they roll up the sidewalks" at night, he says.
And, after working in 28 countries, he's decided "Las Vegas is the best seven-day-a-week town" for a dueling pianist.
