R. Kelly wrote the song for Celine Dion’s ‘98 holiday album, “These Are Special Times.”
John Katsilometes
Columnist
Phone: 702-204-6176
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John Katsilometes’ man-about-town column appears on daily on page 3A. Katsilometes moved to Las Vegas from Northern California in 1996 and spent two years with the RJ before moving to the Greenspun Media Group in 1998, where he served as an editor, magazine writer and columnist. He returned to the RJ in August 2016. He has won numerous state and regional awards, including the 2013 Nevada Press Association Journalist of the Year honor, and has been awarded three times for column writing by the Best of the West contest.
Paul McCartney has added a trip to Las Vegas to his “Freshen Up” tour. The rock legend and seemingly indefatigable touring performer plays T-Mobile Arena on June 29.
Richard Oberacker, the music director at “Ka” at MGM Grand, has been teasing to this project in an unhurried sort of way over the past few months.
Matt Goss enjoyed a late-night sparring session with Piers Morgan at an undisclosed location in Las Vegas on Sunday.
Bottles of Drake’s Mod Réserve retail for $300. His Mod Rosé Champagne is $400 (prices for the scores of bottles served at XS on Thursday have not been verified, but expect they were even higher than those listed).
The room in which Shin Lim is appearing is named for a former “AGT” champ, but Terry Fator Theater is not customarily home to magic.
Drake told a wild crowd at Wynn Las Vegas, “I’ll be back here at XS all year. You’ll have a lotta chances to see me.”
Lady Gaga, who opened her magestic Enigma production at Park Theater on Dec. 28, tweeted an apology for working with R. Kelly, the subject of a crippling Lifetime documentary “Surviving R. Kelly.”
Derek Stevens is a Las Vegas pioneer of today. It’s a role he so relishes and accepts that the announcement of the name of his new Fremont Street resort, Circa, was peppered with references to the pioneers of the past.
“We were on the elevator on our way up here and we’re asking, ‘Are they going to give us a hangover? Do they expect us to arrive hung over?’” CES conventioneer Taylor Lemmon said, laughing. “But where’s the piano? Where’s the tiger?”
The production originally went dark for from Dec. 6-17, owing its schedule break to Salt-N-Pepa’s “exhausting” Australian tour in support of Usher. The show had scheduled a return date of Jan. 17, but all dates have been taken off the schedule.
Omnia was where Vegas nightlife parties with advanced virtual-reality technology. At some point, the cold-steam cannons, strobes and LED chandelier at the center of Omnia’s main floor themselves feel computer-generated
Xavier Mortimer became known to Strip audiences through his appearances on “America’s Got Talent” in 2015, and also as an acrobatic performer in “Michael Jackson One” at Mandalay Bay,
The club welcomed more than 600 CES attendees, offering a free drinks — up to $18 (with Strip prices in full effect) — for the first 500 to enter the club.
As he hung with Derek Stevens at the D’s Longbar, TV host Marcus Lemonis remarked, “This is nothing like I thought. This place is packed!” Lemonis’ three-day trip to the Strip and Fremont Street is chronicled in “The Profit: High Stakes,” airing at 10 p.m. Tuesday on CNBC.