Mark’s Las Vegas Blog - Your Source for Vegas Info

Woohoo! My favorite band Rush is returning to Las Vegas!

They announced last year that they were adding another leg of the very successful “Snakes & Arrows” tour which made a stop here last August.
I was hoping for another Vegas date & my wish came true! May 10 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

They’ve always played at the MGM Grand Arena so I’m not sure why this show’s at the MB. Maybe a scheduling conflict? Anyway I’ve never seen a show over there so that’ll be fun.

They also said they’re tweaking the set list a little which is good. The last leg of the tour they played just a couple too many songs from their latest CD. While it’s a great CD, they could have played a few more older songs. They did play a few gems that haven’t been played in years though so that was cool as well.

The awesome thing about the show is it’s just “An Evening with Rush.” No opening act. Just 3 hours of Rush. It’s amazing to see those guys, who are all in their mid-50’s now, to just absolutely destroy it for 3 solid hours, with a 20 minute break mid-show.

Tickets are on sale now so don’t miss out! Even if you’re a casual fan you’ll never forget the experience.

There was a big fire at the Monte Carlo hotel the other day. I was working & had the TV on in the background. Just happened to turn around & saw “Breaking News! Fire at the Monte Carlo!”

I went “Uh oh that’s not good.” The top part of the hotel was on fire!

At first it looked pretty bad. Fires at the tops of tall buildings are never good. With the way the roofs are constructed here the firefighters had a hard time getting to the fire. What you see is mostly a facade and the actual roof is a few feet lower than the actual “top.”

They literally had to break some of the windows & hang out of the windows with the hoses! It took a little while for them to knock it down. The whole thing lasted maybe 2 hours. They also totally shut down traffic on the Strip as a precaution & to also let the emergency vehicles access the scene.

The entire hotel was also evacuated with the guests being brought over to the MGM Grand Arena as a holding area. They were put up in other MGM properties for the night & allowed today to retrieve their belongings.

It was reported that 17 people were taken to area hospitals, mostly for smoke inhilation. Luckily there was no deaths. It could have been a lot worse considering how bad it looked.

All of the media during the coverage reminded us about the 1980 MGM Grand fire, which killed 85 & injured hundreds. To this day it remains the worst disaster in Nevada history & definitely the darkest moment for Las Vegas. 

I had a chance to go by today & check out the scene for myself, as there was no way yesterday anyone could have gotten anywhere near the place. Luckily the damage wasn’t nearly as bad as was being reported. Just the facade on the very top is what had burned & there is no structual damage. Also there was some damage & most likely water damage to some of the rooms on the upper levels due to the close proximity to the fire.

As of this writing the hotel and casino are still closed. It was reported that it’ll remain closed until they either remove or secure the facade, which might take a while.

These pics were taked from the NY-NY parking garage, which gave me a great vantage point to survey the damage.

I went to the Lenny Kravitz show last night over at the Pearl theater in the Palms. I had seen Lenny before back when I was still living in Florida & it was a great show. I had almost forgotten about it being that day & just by chance was reminded. I jumped online & bought a ticket for willcall pickup. I hadn’t been to a concert in a while & figured “Hey good way to close out the week!”

Now here’s the crazy part. I’ve been to literally hundreds of concerts & never had seen one with a major equipment malfunction.

Until last night.

The show started off ok, but four songs into it Lenny stopped the show & went looking for “Tommy” who I guessed was one of the crew. After a few minutes he said they had some big problems & apologized. I assumed the monitors weren’t working & he had problems hearing himself. After a few more minutes of confusion he decided to carry on as best as they could.

The show transitioned into a kind of weird unplugged/acoustic thing & he was even taking requests! He said it’d be like some friends just hanging out, only there was 2000 of us!

From there it morphed into a crazy blues jam with Lenny taking over the bass for a bit then eventually ending up on the drums for a good while. It was actually pretty fun! His band is top-notch & never missed a beat. He made the comment “You’ll always remember this night as the night Lenny Kravitz lost his mind!”

He ended the show on an up note playing one of his biggest hits to close out the show “Are you gonna Go my Way” complete with Lenny on the Flying-V guitar.

All in all is was a fun night. He managed to salvage the night & actually made it pretty entertaining. 

It was my first chance to check out the Pearl venue too. It a great place to see a show, decent size but still a degree of intimacy.

There’s some shows coming up there I’d like to see. Hopefully they work out the gremlins before then!

I finally got to see my first Cirque du Soliel show this week! Funny that all the time I’ve been coming to Las Vegas & also living here I’ve never had the chance to attend one.

We have 5 permanent Cirque shows here:
“O” at the Bellagio
Mystère at Treasure Island
KÀ at the MGM Grand
Love at the Mirage (in the old Sigfried & Roy Theater)
Zumanity at the New York-New York.
Also with the Criss Angel show opening later this year it’ll be 6.

We got tickets to see Mystère this past Friday night. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, not having seen a Cirque show before. The best way I can describe it is “performance art.” It’s quite a mix of acrobatics, music, lights & sound with a little comic relief for good measure. It’s really designed to be a real visual spectacle. Also the show is basically safe for all ages so there’s really no worry bringing the kids. Some of the other Cirque shows are more adult-oriented but Mystère was fine. 

The really impressive part was how it’s all put together. The show it really thought out well and has a nice flow to it. There’s some great moments of gymnastics & the scenery constantly changes. It’s one of those things that’s tough to explain, you just have to see it for yourself!

One thing that I did appreciate is they use a live band with the show. Having been a musician myself for many years it’s good to see real people playing as opposed to using backing tapes.

I really enjoyed myself & I’m gonna make it a pact to see more shows now. It’s really a treat! I highly reccommend seeing a show while you’re out here. People always ask “Well what can we do besides gamble?” Go see a show! You won’t regret it!

I had a chance to head over to the new Palazo hotel this week for my first visit. I was quite impressed!
Palazzo means “palace” in Italian.  In case you haven’t been keeping up with what’s new & exciting in Las Vegas (and c’mon that’s why you’re here right? ) the Palazzo is the newest hotel to open up on the strip since the Wynn in 2005. It’s not really an extension of the Venetian, but they are owned by the same company & are connected by walkways. It’s currently the tallest hotel on the strip also.

There really isn’t a theme to it. It’s just a nice, upscale place. As of this writing it isn’t fully operational yet. They still have a few of the restaurants to finish and not all of the rooms are open yet and hardly any of the retail shops are open. But the casino is fully open as well as the bars & lounges.

One nice thing they’ve done is create an area of tranquility off the casino, which a lot of places seem to lack. There’s a whole area between the casino & leading to the entrance to the Venetian property where there’s a couple of nice fountains & a spectacular waterfall. The area is also where most of the retail shops are located.

Another unique feature is the underground parking garage. Due to the limited land they had to build on they had no choice. One advantage is if you self-park it’s a lot shorter walk into the casino than it usually is! There’s an escalator that brings you right up in the middle of the casino.

Also the casino is a lot closer to the road than what we’re used to. The parking can be accessed from either the Las Vegas Strip side and also off of Sands Blvd, and of course you can valet part from the porte-cochère if you so choose. There’s also 2 ways to get inside from the Venetian as well. One is from the end of the Grand Canal Shoppes where the gondola ride is and also from the casino level at the back of “restaurant row.”

My first impression was nice job! I liked a lot of the way it’s put together. The casino is nice & open, the architecture is subtle but appealing. It follows in the footsteps of the Bellagio & the Wynn in what I like to call “understated elegance.” At first you just  go “Wow that’s nice,” but the more you look the more detail you see.

It’s always fun for me to get to see these magnificent places finally open after watching them go up for over 2 years (and sometimes longer!) Like I mentioned, it’s really not “themed.” I had read that they wanted to get away from the heavy theme a but & just have a nice upscale casino. Also now with the Venetian, Palazzo & the Sands Convention center it’s now the largest hotel-casino complex in the world!

If you want to check out how it looks our friends over at  AccessVegas.com have some great shots at their site.

All in all I think they did a great job. Once all the shops & restaurants are open they’ll do fine. It’s something new to see on your next trip!

New Year’s Eve is a real event in Vegas. They just close the whole strip off to traffic & it’s really fun to be able to walk around where you normally can’t! It’s a real festive atmosphere, lots of people drinking & having a blast. It is a bit chilly though (well for me it is!).

This year they estimated 300,000 were here, and Metro said that arrests were down from last year. They do a good job on keeping things safe. 

They also had an awesome fireworks display. They shoot off from 7 different casino rooftops. The show lasted over 8 minutes & met me tell ya it was great!

Who needs to watch a ball drop when you can hang out in Las Vegas for New Years!