the times | Wednesday January 19 2022 9
arts
Elliott rented a house four miles away.
“I had complete privacy and it was
fantastic. I had a piano brought into
my room so I could write and record
on my days off.”
Las Vegas began to become a party
destination in the Thirties, when the
Mormon-founded town was first
granted a gaming licence. Liberace
was the first musician to conquer the
place, making his debut there in 1944
and becoming one of the highest-paid
entertainers in the world thanks
to various residencies in the
Fifties, Sixties and Seventies.
When “Mr Showmanship” took off
his cape, it was driven off stage in
a miniature Rolls-Royce.
Another star of the first age of
Vegas was Nat King Cole, who
became its darling in the late
Forties despite segregation laws
forbidding him from gambling at
the venue where he was headlining.
Sinatra played there between 1951 and
1994, and when he died in 1998 the
lights on the Strip were dimmed in
his honour. He and the rest of the
Rat Pack played many of their most
celebrated shows at the Sands Hotel
and Casino, of which Sinatra owned
a share. The Sands had links with the
mafia, as did the city as a whole —
it’s no coincidence that the National
Museum of Organised Crime and Law
Enforcement has its home there.
Then there was Presley, who in 1969
pulled off the most famous of musical
comebacks at the International Hotel,
now known as Westgate Las Vegas.
“There’s this little square of wood
beside the stage, which they haven’t
touched because it’s where he
stopped before he walked out,”
Elliott says. Elvis rarely left the
building, retiring to a suite
on the 30th floor. He
did 837 shows in
Vegas in eight
years, but
DENISE TRUSCELLO/CAESARS ENTERTAINMENT/APwas a game-changer for the city. She
was the first artist who was there at
the peak of her career.”
Elton John shared Dion’s residency
in 2003, one playing while the other
took a break. “It’s logical that Celine
Dion would go there,” Elliott says.
“What was a headline grabber was
Elton.” Soon established acts such as
Rod Stewart, Kiss and Aerosmith were
signing up too. “So many people have
left Hollywood and moved to Vegas,”
Elliott says, among them Dion,
Carlos Santana and Gene Simmons
of Kiss. “It’s a happening town. Great
restaurants, great theatres, hotels the
size of planets.”
In recent years the city has hosted
residencies by stars such as Beyoncé
and Katy Perry, by rappers (Drake),
country singers (Shania Twain) and
DJs (Calvin Harris). Once the refuge
of an artist on the wane, they can
now be a barometer of success.
Spears’s residency at Planet
Hollywood from 2013-17 revitalised
her career, making an estimated
£100 million in ticket sales, but when
she cancelled another in 2019 it was
a sign that all was not well, as her
subsequent battle to free herself from
her legal conservatorship proved.
Nor are audiences as demure as they
were. Now they are younger, often in
stag-do or hen-party mode and keen
to make the most of the vices on offer.
“Whatever happens in Vegas starts on
the plane,” as they said in Bridesmaids.
“Vegas is kind of a naughty corner,”
Elliott says. “Everybody there is
visiting, and when you visit
somewhere you don’t have to worry
about what people think because
you’re never going to see them again.
So they were a bit mad, you know,
they weren’t all sat down and
chicken-in-a-basket.”
Vegas still isn’t to everyone’s taste.
“It may not be the end of the world,
per se,” Robin Williams once said. “But
you can certainly see it from there.” If
this is Armageddon, though, Adele and
co will be going out in a blaze of glory.that’s piffling compared with Wayne
Newton, who played an estimated
30,000 between 1959 and 2019. After
each one “Mr Las Vegas” would fly
his helicopter back to Casa de
Shenandoah, a Greek-style desert
mansion that he shared with deer,
swans, peacocks and wallabies, and
settle into a hot tub carved from
desert rock.
If you are asking, “Wayne who?”
you are not alone. Elliott says it was
a running joke that “Mr Las Vegas”
was a man “whose highest ever chart
position was 167”. Newton dented the
American Top Ten a couple of times,
but it’s fair to say that he owed most
of his success to Vegas. As did
Liberace, even if in his twilight
years the gag was that more people
went to the Liberace Museum than
to his shows. Vegas became
known as a retirement home
for superannuated
crooners — in
1985 Sammy
Davis Jr
cancelled a
residency to have a hip replacement.
That’s what put off Paul McCartney,
who told GQ recently that playing
Vegas was “something I’ve been trying
to avoid my whole life. Definitely
nothing attracts me about the idea.
It’s the elephants’ graveyard.” It was,
as Elliott puts it, “where people went
to die”. And not just the performers.
Cher once said of her audiences in
Vegas: “They’re not allowed to stand
up and they’re very, very old.
Sometimes they had walkers and
oxygen masks. It took me a long
time to realise that it may be
the last concert they ever see.”
The older crowd preferred
acts with slow songs and
easy banter. In that respect,
Adele is classic Vegas. They
had less tolerance for the
loud or lascivious —a much younger Presley’s debut there
in 1956 was greeted, said Newsweek,
“as if he were a clinical experiment”.
Yet in recent decades Vegas has
expanded its image beyond gambling,
gangsters and grandmas. Punters and
performers have become much more
diverse. That is partly thanks to the
rise of mega resorts with big arenas,
starting with the Mirage in 1989. “It
has allowed us to compete with
national touring shows,” says Chris
Baldizan, the executive vice-president
of entertainment for MGM Resorts
International, who has signed up acts
such as Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars
for residencies. “Before, we didn’t have
theatres that were 4,000 seats, we
had showrooms of around 1,500.”
Another milestone was Dion’s
decision to sign up for her first
residency at Caesars Palace in 2003
while still in the glow of post-Titanic
superstardom. “I would call it the first
real big mega residency, where she
planted her flag in Vegas,” Baldizan
says. “The only place you could see
Celine Dion was in Las Vegas, and thatHow to see Adele in
Vegas if you’re a UK fan
Package The online
booking platform
BookSeats.com allows
users to build a bespoke
package around an
event, such as an Adele
gig, incorporating flights,
accommodation and
entrance tickets into
a one-price purchase.Tickets First, find your
performer or event, pick
a date and how many
tickets (a maximum of
eight per travel package
are offered, subject to
availability). Adele is
performing two shows
a week, on Fridays and
Saturdays, at Caesars
Palace, Las Vegas, from
January 21 to April 16.
Once you’ve filled in
this, and the basic hotel
and flight details, a map
of the venue is
generated allowing you
to select your seating
area for the event.Hotels Next you choose
an area — near the
venue or the city centre,
here Caesars Palace
is suggested — and
select the dates, room
and number of guests.
After you’ve filled in
your basic flight details
as well, a map of the
area is created showing
the range of hotels
available for your dates.
You can narrow the
search according to
price, star rating and
reviews, while checking
for special hotel features
such as pool, fitness
equipment, parking,
breakfast and internet,
then sort the results by
popularity, distance to
the venue, price and
rating.Flights Lastly you
choose the airport of
departure and flight,
with the option to selecteconomy or business
class. The exact price
of the flights aren’t
displayed at this stage
— they are added into
a travel bundle at
checkout according to
average price per person.
We selected a
standard room for two
adults from April 14-16
in Tropicana Las Vegas
— a DoubleTree by
Hilton Hotel & Resort
($3,967, about £2,900),
two seats in row E of
the second mezzanine
($274, about £200), and
return economy flights
from Heathrow to
Las Vegas. The average
price per person for
the travel bundle was
calculated at $4,324.99.
Total: $8,649.98 (£6,320)
for two people,
including taxes and
fees ($2,826.76, about
£2,065).
Jade CuttleElton John has had two residencies
at Caesars Palace, starting in 2004Britney Spears at
Planet Hollywood in- Left: Celine Dion
at Caesars Palace in - Below: Adele,
who begins her
residency on Friday