Righteous Brothers point south in new Vegas residency
South Point Showroom is showing some Righteousness.
Specifically, The Righteous Brothers are moving to hotel owner Michael Gaughan’s entertainment venue, beginning in August. The first set of dates, all shows at 6:30 p.m., are Aug. 17, 18, 19; Sept. 28, 29, 30; and Oct. 26, 27, 28. Hotel entertainment director Michael Libonati reports tickets are $39 (including fees), onsale noon July 6.
The rock ‘n’ roll revival is thus hauling out of Harrah’s Showroom, where it had headlined in the 6 p.m. slot since 2017.
The duo’s co-founder Bill Medley and current partner Bucky Heard made the announcement Thursday to a packed house at “The Dennis Bono Show” at the showroom. The venue is soon to be the center of the pair’s Vegas residency, though Medley and Heard will continue to tour.
“This is an emotional decision,” Medley said Sunday. “It’s not about business — it’s about being where I feel comfortable, and I love, love, love that room. It’s not that I don’t love Harrah’s, which is where Bucky and I put this all together. But Mike Gaughan has been a dear friend for a long time, about 40 years.
“Corporations are corporations, and (Gaughan) isn’t a corporation. You can just walk into his office if you have an issue, and right, wrong or indifferent, the problem is solved.”
Medley and Gaughan have been friends for decades. The Righteous Brothers, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame act featuring Medley and co-founder Bobby Hatfield, headlined at Orleans Showroom beginning in 1996 when Gaughan’s Coast Casinos owned the resort.
At Harrah’s, Righteous Brothers would have worked around Donny Osmond’s schedule after Osmond moves in Aug. 31, with select dates through November. The duo would not have been scheduled on the same dates Osmond had locked in, as the hotel wanted its marquee acts to toggle weeks to maximize ticket sales.
That meant Medley and Heard would likely have waited until December or even next year to return to Harrah’s. Also, the comic Tape Face is still working the main room at Harrah’s until he returns to House of Tape on the casino floor.
And we expect the real Righteous Brothers to be replaced by the hologram Whitney Houston tribute production in the Harrah’s Showroom. Holo-Houston is taking the 6 p.m. slot when Osmond is onstage and 8 p.m. when Donny is off.
As for Medley, he turned 80 in August. He had a cancerous growth removed from his throat in May 2020. The next month, he lost his wife, Paula, to Parkinson’s disease.
Today, Medley said he just wants to spend whatever time he has left as a performer in a room that feels like home.
“I hope to be onstage for another 40 years, but while I’m still around, I’m going to be where I want to be,” the Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famer said. “I’m not going to do anything I don’t want to do. What’s the point of that? And this is what I want.”
Muzik moves
“Love Muzik: The Las Vegas Residency” was on the cusp — the cusp, I tell you! — of going on sale at International Theater at Westgate Las Vegas last Friday. But word came down Thursday from Westgate officials that the deal had effectively unwound. At the center were disagreements between the hotel and show producers over the room rental fee (when it should be paid) and the show’s insurance costs.
An original R&B concept, “Love Muzik” was advancing to a July 3 opening, with additional dates July 10-11. It would then build toward a full-scale residency. But the shift was so late in planning that the show’s musicians had actually posted notice about the show coming to Westgate a full day after it had been called off.
Not dissuaded, producer and musician De’Miyon Hall reports he is in serious talks with MGM Resorts International. The former music director and drummer for Gladys Knight is determined to land “Love Muzik” at a prominent Vegas hotel-casino.
Royal opening
It was so hot at Las Vegas Ballpark (how hot was it!?) that Brody Dolyniuk melted his OWN face off.
Almost, anyway. But Dolyniuk’s British Rock Royalty band and Nina Di Gregorio’s Femmes of Rock strings ensemble marshaled through high heat for the first rock concert ever at the ballpark. The best of Pink Floyd, The Who, Queen, David Bowie and Led Zeppelin filled the night air.
About 2,200 fans paid $20 a ticket, and they cheered and grooved throughout, sweating through the 100-plus temperatures, with Las Vegas Events President Pat Christenson and Las Vegas Aviators GM Don Logan in that mix.
Afterward, Dolyniuk said, “This was life-changing.” Maybe not in the way you think. “I was literally crawling around under the stage, in the 105-degree heat, and thinking, ‘This is not something I can do anymore.’ ”
Technical problems snagged the show, but didn’t wreck the experience for the fans. The larger question is when this can happen again. Las Vegas Ballpark is in the same booking horizon as such companies as Station Casinos and Fremont Street Experience, which also stage headliners who can turn a profit at the ballpark.
Such recurring Vegas headliners as Don Felder, Richard Marx and REO Speedwagon come to mind. And they are already taken. Return dates for Dolyniuk and Di Gregorio would be welcome, when the time (and weather) is right.
‘Death’ match
“Wow” is planning its return to the Rio in late July or early August. Yes, the plucky variety show outlasted “Chippendales” at the hotel, so … Wow.
The production is planning a Wheel of Death number, which is also known in “Ka” at Cirque du Soleil and the closed “Celestia” circus show. This is the apparatus with the looped track, on which acrobats stand and run.
This is not to be confused with the Globe of Death, in “Extravaganza!” at Bally’s, where two and three motorcycles zoom inside a circular cage. “Wow” mainstays — the bow-and-arrow artist Silvia Silvia and her plate-spinning husband, Victor Ponce — are moving full-time to the “Extravaganza!” cast.
The show at Bally’s is also being rewritten, with producer Hanoch Rosènn recruiting comedy writer Bruce Vilanch to work up a new script. Vilanch has won six Emmys and was lead writer on the Oscars telecast from 2000-2014. When you need to pepper the plate-spinning act, he’s your man.
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.
