Boot-scootin' with redneck impressionists Who Says You Can’t Go Home,” the Bon Jovi/Jennifer Nettles duet that launched the current crop of country-rock crossovers (we’re skunk-eyein’ you, Missouri native Sheryl Crow), plays overhead in the Events Center Showroom at Fitzgeralds. Rock memorabilia lines the walls, while images of slo-mo combines and cattle fill the front screen. And, because it’s Vegas, the dark-suited usher lifts a velvet rope when audience members enter. Leave it to Country Superstars Tribute—the new show housed in an Irish-castle-themed casino run by Vegas’ first black casino owner—to inject a bit of Midwestern red-blood into a mountain-surrounded municipality in the Mojave Desert.

“Good evening, y’all,” the overhead announcer intones, prefacing the “real country music, the way it was meant to be … from the heart.”

The Tropicana's entertainment director who hired Burton as a specialty act for eight weeks left soon after. The replacement, Larry Lee, waited for two weeks before renewing Burton for a spot in "Folies Bergere."

Burton stayed for 9 1/2 years, and worked two years without a night off.

"I did two shows a night seven nights a week," he said. "The specialty acts didn't have a swing like the cast and dancers.

"On our two-week vacation, I performed in Tahoe. I drove a yellow 1970 Plymouth Duster with a leaky radiator and would frequently have to fill it with a gallon of water."

The Utah musical family, who churned out teenybopper hits in the 1970s, hasn't performed together in 25 years.

Close Enough: Fitzgeralds' country tribute show hits most of the right notes.
By MIKE WEATHERFORD/LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

The title fits. "Country Superstars Tribute" is a straight-up name for a no-frills production that gives you the costumed impressions without any loose talk or messin' around.

It turns out that a country theme makes a good fit for a low-budget show. Country music is not fancy by nature — not, at least, until the new breed of divas came along — so you can keep the costume budget under control and still allow your Toby Keith (Tim Tracy) to change his shirt a few times.

The new show and its businesslike approach also works for the tiny showroom at Fitzgeralds, which is really more like the Las Vegas lounges of the old days. The compact revue is all about singers in front of a five-piece band, the very thing a lounge show used to be if you subtract the look-alike gimmick.

More Here:
http://www.lvrj.com/neon/8483322.html

Funky pop rock troupe Maroon 5 stops at The Pearl on Nov. 10. Tickets are $104.50, $125 and $165 and go on sale at noon Saturday at the venue box office and Ticketmaster outlets.

Former Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell's Satellite Party enlivens the House of Blues on Oct. 10. General admission tickets are $25 in advance, $27 day of show and reserved seats are $30. They go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday at the venue box office and Ticketmaster outlets.

Punk icon Henry Rollins does a spoken word engagement at the House of Blues on Nov. 9. General admission tickets are $20, reserved seats are $22 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday at the venue box office and Ticketmaster outlets.

Alt-rock stars Incubus stop at the Hard Rock Hotel's Summer Stage on Sept. 6, with the Bravery. General admission tickets are $39.50, reserved seats are $49.50 and reserved VIP tickets are $55.50. They go on sale at noon Saturday at the Hard Rock box office, 4455 Paradise Road, and Ticketmaster outlets.

Rapper Snoop Dogg visits the Hard Rock Pool on Sept. 7. Tickets are $45 and go on sale at noon Saturday at the hotel box office and Ticketmaster outlets.
http://www.lvrj.com/neon/8483382.html

You may be sick of hearing about the number seven after last weekend, but it has become the dominant one for the Las Vegas-based editions of Broadway musicals.

Three of the four titles on the Strip — "Monty Python's Spamalot," "The Producers" and "Mamma Mia!" — now run on a schedule of seven shows per week. Only "Phantom — The Las Vegas Spectacular" has an eight-show schedule, but that's still down from 10 when it opened in June 2006.

Both "Phantom" and "Spamalot" cut back their schedules recently.

Curtailing "Phantom" seems to settle any perceived competition with Cirque du Soleil's "Love" that came from both opening the same week; the Beatles-themed production is still running strong with 10 shows per week.

More Here:
http://www.lvrj.com/living/8451757.html

The pyramid will stay, but changes inside are on the way.
By HOWARD STUTZ/LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Luxor is working to get Egypt out of the pyramid.

Two years after acquiring the 4,500-room hotel-casino as part of its $7.9 billion purchase of the Mandalay Resort Group, MGM Mirage is giving the Luxor a new look.

The casino operator wants to transform the image of Luxor, which is named for a historic Egyptian city.

"We're not a British museum with ancient artifacts, we're a casino-resort," Luxor President and COO Felix Rappaport said. "This was a brilliantly conceived building from the outside. The pyramid always created a sense of wow and wonder, but the inside never delivered on that promise."

More Here:
http://www.lvrj.com/business/8451727.html

The Sahara moved a step closer toward new ownership Wednesday.

The Gaming Control Board gave tentative approval for the Navegante Group, a Las Vegas-based casino management company, to operate gaming at the Sahara.

The aging Strip property is in the process of being sold to a partnership between Los Angeles-based SBE Entertainment Group and San Francisco-based Stockbridge Real Estate Funds for between $300 million and $400 million.

The transaction is expected to close July 31, and Navegante, which is headed by longtime gaming executive Larry Woolf, would take over the casino immediately. The Nevada Gaming Commission still needs to sign off on the control board's recommendation when it meets July 26.

More Here:
http://www.lvrj.com/business/8451747.html

Sixteen bullets rained down from the mezzanine onto the casino floor, striking four people.

As tourists and employees scattered, Lampert dropped his hot dog and hunkered down.

Moving slowly amid the stampede, one man in a cream-colored trench coat walked by clutching a gun.

Vegas is becoming a parallel universe.

Couldn't afford The Police reunion in June? You probably can dig up 10 bucks for The Police Experience at the Silverton July 20 and 21.

Did you miss Ozzy Osbourne at the "VH1 Rock Honors"? Or Pink Floyd maestro Roger Waters at the MGM Grand? Friday's "RockShow!" at the Las Vegas Hilton will keep your butane-lighter thumb in shape for both of them.

If your vacation doesn't quite overlap the real Tom Jones at the MGM in August, you might be interested in a new startup: Harmik, the single-named impersonator who dominates the narrow field of Tomcat impersonators, hangs out his shingle in the Canyon Club at the Four Queens starting July 29.

By OMAR SOFRADZIJA/LAS VEGASREVIEW-JOURNAL

More people were riding the Las Vegas Monorail last month than in any time since late 2005, but turnstiles still weren't spinning fast enough for the struggling rapid transit line to pay for itself.

In June, the monorail carried an average of 23,790 riders per day, the highest average since 25,788 people took the monorail each day in November 2005, according to statistics released Friday.

But at the current average of $3.77 in fares collected per passenger, the monorail would need a daily average of 32,625 riders to generate $123,000 in revenue needed to balance the monorail's books, according to an estimate made in 2006 by Fitch Ratings, a New York City-based credit ratings firm.

More Here:
http://www.lvrj.com/news/8369977.html

“Voted the best place on the Strip to get drunk,” flashes across the big screen behind the main bar at the Rockhouse in the Imperial Palace.

“By who?” a barfly skeptically asks us. Within seconds, a pair of go-go boots stomps across the counter to hover over him, bottle of booze in hand. He is so distracted by the eye-level camouflage miniskirt and fishnets that the incoming flow of strongly mixed tequila sunrise nearly misses the mark. After a long healthy pour, he wipes his mouth, eyes slightly watering, and with ear-to-ear cheese proclaims: “This is the best place on the Strip to get drunk!” Who voted officially is still in question, but it appears it doesn’t matter.

Touting sex, shots and rock ’n’ roll, there really is no legal vice left unturned in the fabulous room of the Rockhouse. Located in the conjoined building outside Imperial Palace (right next to the main valet), this bar is everything that Sin City stands for.

“There is nothing else like the Rockhouse on the Strip,” said managing partner Jonathan Fine, cracking a smile as one of the sexy go-go dancers climbs into the giant birdcage hanging in the middle of the dance floor. “This place is about as far out of control as you can get within the law. Pure fun.”

With a plethora of scantily clad cocktailing goddesses and dancers, and free shots all day and night, the party goes into the early morning. Needless to say, we didn’t question the next flash on the screen: “Our bartenders do it on the first night.” We tipped well either way.

"She's hated," said prop comic Joe Trammel, who spent 21 hours a day most of the last week in a pink jail "cell," spoofing her on the Fremont Street Experience.

"I don't think she'll be able to go out in public again or a walk a red carpet," said Trammel, who said Friday was "pure pandemonium" for him after Hilton was sent back to jail in Los Angeles to serve the remainder of her sentence.

Trammel's spoof, titled "Glamour in the Slammer," is aimed at bringing attention to drunken driving, which started Hilton's legal tailspin.

When Trammel, who performs at the V Theatre (Planet Hollywood Resort), returned to his prop cell on Friday, the reaction was hostile, at first.

"People threw things at me, ice and other things, thinking I was supporting her," said Trammel, who wore a Hilton wig, white oversized sunglasses, prison-striped skirt, pink slippers and had a black-and-white-striped bed cover (with pink sheet, of course).

He went from a zero to hero in seconds, when they realized he was tweaking the limelight-loving socialite.

Jeff Beacher, host and producer of the Hard Rock Hotel-based "Beacher's Madhouse," slammed Trammel for the stunt.

Beacher said he's disgusted by "the way the judicial system is treating Paris.

"She is one of the most loving and caring people I know. It's harassment and horrible what's going on and my love and prayers are with her and her family. She's an absolute goddess."

Palms owner George Maloof, also a close friend of Hilton's, said "she's not the spoiled brat everyone thinks she is."

"They're overreacting and taking advantage of her celebrity," said Maloof. "I feel for her. They're throwing her around like a political football."
ReviewJournal.com - News - NORM: They love Paris or they hate her

David Chase, creator of "The Sopranos," called Schirripa at home back in February, said he was in the neighborhood and wanted to stop over.

"He had never come to my house before. He drove up with his limo driver, Jason Cipolla. It was like the grim reaper knocking on the door," said Schirripa, from a hotel room at Foxwood Resorts in Connecticut, where he was watching a New York Yankees game Saturday with "Sopranos" pal Michael Imperioli.

Chase cut to the chase.

"I guess you know why I'm here," he told Schirripa.

Two weeks later, on the set, Schirripa, a longtime Las Vegas resident and still entertainment director of the Riviera, ended his six-season run in a hail of bullets, the victim of a mob hit in a model train store.

"That episode (which aired last week) was possibly one of the finest hours of television, and I'm flattered that I was part of it," said Schirripa, who travels to Fort Lauderdale today for a final-episode extravaganza with the show's cast at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel.

Life after "The Sopranos" will soon bring him back to Las Vegas, where "Casino Cinema," a show he co-hosts on the Spike network with Beth Ostrosky, will be filmed four or five times a month at the Hard Rock Hotel.

Meantime, Schirripa didn't mince any words weighing in on Paris Hilton's return to jail.

Interviewed in New York City by tmz.com on Friday as he was getting in a limo, Schirripa was asked to comment on the socialite's incarceration.

He had this advice: "Stop whoring around, Paris. Behave yourself. You got a second chance. Stop being a whore."
ReviewJournal.com - News - NORM: 'Sopranos' actor went out in style

But so do the boys.

And the boys who look like girls.

And so 2 1/2 decades after she first gave voice to them, Cyndi Lauper's femme-first anthems have become less gender-specific and more about the spirit of inclusiveness that has always pulsed at their core.

She bop. He bop. He-she bop. It's all the same, really.T

his was the general thrust of the inaugural True Colors Tour, which kicked off at the MGM Grand Garden on Friday night.

"I'm gonna wait till the midnight hour, that's when my love comes tumblin' down," the voice sang out strong and clear. "I'm gonna wait till the midnight hour, when there's no one else around."

For the moment I forgot my morning assignment and instead followed the sound of the voice, up one parking ramp and then another. The acoustics in the garage were surprisingly good, and the song boomed out strong as if it were being amplified and blended with a soundboard.

Was it some showroom headliner, or Strip lounge veteran? Perhaps it was a celebrity guest just passing the time.

As I turned a corner, I saw the singer.

More from The Las Vegas Review Journal here:
http://www.lvrj.com/news/7953467.html

In a neon galaxy not so far, far away, a small nebula rose. The calculated formation pulled large masses of material its way, slowly taking shape and asserting its spatial coordinates within the five-mile long universe. Thus, in the year 2007, Planet Hollywood Resort was born.

Bringing the glitz and glamour of Hollywood is the all-new Planet Hollywood Resort, a head-to-toe makeover of the previous occupant, the Aladdin. The new digs are A-list, first class and honey sweet all the way.

Interested? Step inside. Swarovski crystal chandeliers adorn the lobby that grants access to the casino floor, which boasts 250 high-definition plasma screen televisions, the latest slots and gaming tables, newly opened poker room and ceilings that seem to reach up into the heavens.

Rendezvous-ready? Check into one of the 2,600 guest rooms and suites that will feed your appetite for entertainment culture, as a Hollywood-themed décor bathes occupants in luxury. It’s VIP all the way, baby.

Still hungry? Nosh on with the hotel’s peerless lineup of restaurants. Opening during the summer are one of New York’s acclaimed steakhouses, Strip House; L.A. Japanese joint, Koi; the muy caliente Mexican delight, Yolos; Italian fare at Alfredo of Rome; America’s favorite meal at the Earl of Sandwich; and the Hollywood hot dog favorite, Pink’s.

In need of body rejuvenation? Then pamper yourself, Hollywood style, at the all-new Spa by Mandara, a special treat for any discerning star or starlet.

Refreshed? Then it’s time to burn some pocket weight at the all-new Miracle Mile featuring 170 retailers and restaurants such as H&M, Urban Outfitters, Trader Vic’s and Hawaiian Tropic Zone.

Yearning for some revelry? Intrinsic in its name, the resort provides the best in entertainment and venue capabilities. Headliners will grace the renovated 7,000-seat Theatre for the Performing Arts. Superstar magician Hans Klok stars in The Beauty of Magic with special guest Pamela Anderson and the creators of Stomp present their exclusive Las Vegas production of Stomp Out Loud.

Getting thirsty? Wet your whistle as the planet turns from the sun and the night is ushered in. Hollywood on tap can be found at the new Extra lounge; The Heart Bar exudes the extravagance of Beverly Hills; and bringing a sultry humidity to the dry desert nights famed nightclub entrepreneurs The Opium Group unleash their popular Miami temptress Privé and newcomer Living Room on to the party club circuit.

Wow, dizzy with excitement? Well get steady and ready yourself. The stars will align for the official celebratory party—taking place over the Sept. 28 weekend … Stay tuned.
Las Vegas Magazine

The hotel, as currently envisioned, will have 400 rooms, two restaurants, and possibly some condominiums but it will not have a casino. It is estimated that it will cost about $100 million to build and if all goes well could be open for business by 2010.

This will be the second attempt from Palmer to do a hotel-condo project after a failed bid to build a similar resort on land just west of The Strip at Tropicana and Industrial.

Union Park is the name given to the mostly empty plot of land on the other side of The Plaza Hotel that is currently home to the Las Vegas Premium Outlets, the World Furniture Mart, and a government office building. It is envisioned as a live/work community that will feature a home for the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute (and its building designed by famed architect Frank Gehry), a performing arts center, a jewelry center similar to the Furniture Mart (which will expand dramatically), housing, office buildings, and a major hotel-casino.

Meanwhile in other Downtown news, the owners of Neonopolis appear to be falling out of Mayor Oscar Goodman’s graces, something you really don’t want to have happen considering the fact that he’s a former mob attorney. Despite repeated promises to rejuvenate the white elephant shopping center, including a proposed name change to Fremont Square, very little has actually happened and the Mayor and the City Council are running out patience. Watch for some major developments in the next couple of months.
http://www.vegas4visitors.com/column/index.htm