Frommer's Las Vegas 2004

WHAT’S PLAYING WHERE 245
Note: All of these caveats and
instructions aside, most casino-hotel
showrooms offer good visibility from
just about every seat in the house.
If you prefer alternative or real rock
music, your choices used to be limited,
but that’s all changing. More rock
bands are coming to town, attracted to
the House of Blues or the Hard Rock
Hotel’s The Joint, so that means you
can actually see folks like Marilyn
Manson and Beck in Vegas. But otherwise,
the alternative club scene in town
is no great shakes. Check out the listings
below for bars and coffeehouses,
several of which offer live alternative or
blues music. If you want to know
what’s playing during your stay, consult
the local free alternative papers:
the Las Vegas Weekly, formerly Scope
magazine (biweekly, with great club
and bar descriptions in their listings)
and City Life (weekly, with no descriptions
but comprehensive listings of
what’s playing where all over town).
Both can be picked up at restaurants,
bars, record and music stores, and hip
retail stores. Or you can call Las Vegas
Weekly directly; act nice and they just
might give you a tip on the spot.
If you’re looking for good alt-culture
tips, try asking the cool staff at the
Buffalo Exchange vintage-clothing
store (& 702/791-3960); they have
their fingers right on the pulse of the
underground.
In addition to the listings below,
consider the Fremont Street Experience,
described on p. 179.
Be aware that there is a curfew law
in Vegas: anyone under 18 is forbidden
from being on the Strip without a
parent after 9pm on weekends and
holidays. In the rest of the county,
minors cannot be out without parents
after 10pm on school nights, and midnight
on weekends.
1 What’s Playing Where
It used to be that a show was an essential part of the Vegas experience. Back in
those days, a show was pretty simple: A bunch of scantily (and we mean scantily)
clad showgirls paraded around while a comedian engaged in some raunchy patter.
The showgirls are still here and still scantily clad (though not as often topless;
guess cable TV has taken some of that thrill away), but the productions around
them have gotten impossibly elaborate. And they have to be, because they have
to compete with a free dancing water fountains show held several times nightly
right on the Strip. Not to mention a volcano, a Mardi Gras parade in the sky,
lounge acts galore, and the occasional imploding building. All for free.
The big resort hotels, in keeping with their general over-the-top tendencies, are
pouring mountains of money into high-spectacle extravaganzas, luring big-name
acts into decades-long residencies and surrounding them with special effects that
would put some Hollywood movies to shame. Which is not to say the results are
Broadway quality—they’re big, cheesy fun. Still, with the exception of the astonishing
work done by the Cirque du Soleil productions, most of what passes for a
“show” in Vegas is just a flashier revue, with a predictable lineup of production
number/magic act/production number/acrobatics/production number.
Unfortunately, along with big budgets and big goals come big-ticket prices.
Sure, you can still take the whole family of four to a show for under $100, but
you’re not going to get the same production values that you’d get by splurging
on a Cirque du Soleil show. Which is not to say you always get what you pay
for: There are some reasonably priced shows that are considerably better values
than their more expensive counterparts.
Note: Although every effort has been made to keep up with the volatile Las Vegas
show scene, keep in mind that the following reviews may not be indicative of the