MUSIC: VMAs not returning to Vegas

    And now somebody please cue up Motley Crue’s “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away).”
    Yeah, the song sucks, but it fits the theme of some developing news: After taking place at The Palms last September, the annual MTV Video Music Awards show is bidding adieu to Vegas and returning to Los Angeles this year.
    The VMAs’ Vegas venture was a mixed bag, and my ‘mixed,’ I mean it was like waking up on Christmas morning to find Santa relieving himself in your stocking.
    On the plus side, the show garnered good ratings and did lend itself to one of the more unique broadcasts in the show’s history, with some interesting collaborations that took place in some of the suites, like the Foo Fighters jamming with Serj Tankian on a cover of the Dead Kennedys’ “Holiday in Cambodia.”
    But for all its promise, the event brought plenty of headaches too, including the most claustrophobic, overcrowded red carpet ever and a nasty glut of fans shrieking like cats with their tails caught in the world’s largest paper shredder.
    Mind you, that the show took place on the opening of the NFL season, always a big day for the sports book, and you had way too many in way to small an area.
    I kept thinking how I should have stayed at home and punched myself in the crotch with a brick for three hours. The feeling would have been the same and at least I would have saved money on gas.
    Ahh, but then I would have missed Tommy Lee and Kid Rock’s epic slap fight over the honor of Pamela Anderson, which was like a couple of tattooed Girl Scouts fighting over the last box of Thin Mints.
    Even Palms owner George Maloof – always a good sport who’s consistently ahead of the curve when it comes to garnering publicity for his property – seemed a little harried by the whole event, where he had to jettison hundreds of slot machines and rearrange half his resort for a parade of B-listers like Souljah Boy and Lil Mama.
    So, in short, it was kind of, sort of, not really much fun at all.
    And really, does anybody care about the VMAs any more? Especially since they’re administered by a network that, you know, doesn’t really play music videos any more?
    If the music video itself is antiquated, what does that make the VMAs?
    A reason to party, and little else.
    But you see, here in Vegas, we’re covered in that department.