Danny Gans, who doesn't like having his actual stage show photographed, is shown suiting up in his signature red socks and two-toned wingtips last month when he returned from a three-month break. Photo by Ralph Fountain.

That Danny Gans sure makes a good first impression. But is he the guy you want to stick with?

The singing impressionist is back in stride at The Mirage, emerging last month from a three-month break for surgeries on a hand and rotator cuff. He returns with the energy of his early days in Las Vegas and a tighter act that should keep him in the top tier of Vegas shows for older audiences with $100 to spare.

Especially those who haven't seen him before.

Gans, like all entertainers, must have his hard-core fans who see him time and again. But much of his act depends on its surprise factor: He can sing in a woman's voice. He does imitations of people younger than Rich Little. He can shift his powerful voice from Smokey Robinson silk to Joe Cocker gravel in the blink of an eye.

And because he blasts through more than 60 voices per show with the protection of a seven-piece band, a lot of those voices depend on the shock and awe of the quick hit. Sometimes they bleed over.

"Hey, that Rod Stewart voice was good," you say to yourself or someone else.

But later comes Bryan Adams.

"Wasn't that the Rod Stewart voice again?"

And later still, James Blunt.

"Oh well. Blunt tries to sound like Rod Stewart, too."

Merely acknowledging Blunt's hit, "You're Beautiful," brings Gans out of the time warp he seemed stuck in for a while. Gans, more than most Las Vegas performers, is acutely sensitive to the presence of a reviewer. So before we can go any further, a bit of back story is required.

In May 2003, I slipped in anonymously and called Gans out for doing essentially the same show as the one that opened The Mirage three years earlier, including dated references to Ross Perot, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and "The Lion King."

In a recent interview, Gans defended the need to appeal a wide demographic by doing the crowd-pleasers and the classics, saying the stakes are higher in a $100 show than in a comedy club. But he also said I caught him on a tough-crowd night.

Last weekend, Gans knew I was in the audience. Not only had he purged all of the above, but he made sure to include his impressions of John Mayer, Dave Matthews, Five For Fighting and Michael Bublé.

He also has polished the act to clean up details in the introductions and transitions. There are now jokes to justify mimicry of Creed and Hootie & The Blowfish. He doesn't just launch randomly into a dozen of Jeff Foxworthy's redneck jokes; now he has Foxworthy show up as a Johnny Carson guest.

Did Gans just do what he thought I wanted to see? Or did he understand the act really was tired, and that critics serve as more than mean-spirited losers?

I dunno. You tell me. If you went in the past two weeks and saw Perot, "The 12 Days of Christmas," "The Phantom of the Opera" or anything else Gans thinks I don't like, drop me an e-mail at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com.

Gans is perceptive when he says he understands why critics are excited to see something new. Repetition is indeed the biggest challenge of reviewing casino entertainment. But repeated viewings of Gans make you realize the issue is not simply reduced to old versus new material, but the larger question of what he's trying to accomplish.

Every impressionist has a handful of dead-on ringers. Why does Gans lessen the impact of his best ones -- Tony Bennett, his signature duet of Nat and Natalie Cole -- with so many quick, passable impressions of pop singers (old and new)? What's the point of the long laundry list that touches down on Adams, Don Henley, Boz Scaggs or Peter Cetera (one-time frontman for the group Chicago), other than to punch a few baby-boomer buttons?

Only a little of it is devoted to satire or parody, the things impressions are used for in TV sketch comedy. Gans is just too nice a guy to be wicked, so the humor doesn't get beyond having Andy Williams croon "Joan Rivers mooned me."

The best parts are, in fact, when Gans gets serious. You can argue if they're "classic" or dated, but at least he turns the Sylvester Stallone and "Forrest Gump" imitations usually done as goofs into miniature acting pieces that hit home in their sincerity. Just as he does by saluting Sammy Davis Jr. and Ray Charles as serious performers, not caricatures.

Gans reinvented impressions as a theatrical nightclub act when he first came to town nearly 10 years ago. Those who still haven't caught up to him are in for a good time. Others may be wondering who is going to reinvent it next.