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  2. I think Sun Ra Arkestra could work rather well, @Mike_H.

    Vegas is not like any other city on this planet. Their outlandish outfits and other-wordly sounds would be oddly appropriate.

    And what about Great Uncle Bulgaria, Orinoco, Tobermory, Wellington and Bungo?

    Wombling Los Vegas is the break they’ve been waiting for! They are masters of a whole variety of styles!

  3. Just in case you are thinking that these days anything goes in Las Vegas, I can assure you that there are limits. One Japanese superstar definitely won’t be offered a residency. He’d gobble the whole town up.

  4. Elvis, a 50s act, played Las Vegas in the 70s. Elton John, a 70s act, played there in the 2000s. So it makes sense that the Wu-Tang Clan, a 90s act, play there in the 2020s. It’s basically the same thing, isn’t it? Middle-aged fans whose kids have grown up a bit and who have some cash to spare.

  5. I don’t see how this would work. Hip-hop audiences are not sentimental like rock/pop audiences. Something from 30 years ago, or even 5, is just … old.

    Also live hip-hop gigs rely a hell of a lot on very enthusiastic audience participation to be anything other than really shit, and Vegas audiences are old and full of drink/drugs/burgers. Big US acts can usually get away with about twenty minutes of strolling up and down in big coats going “Yeah y’all!” before saying PEACE and off back to the limo. But then I suppose in LV asking for your money back is a one-way ticket to ending up in pieces in a dumpster.

    I may be wrong, and hope I am. If it works, I’m bound to say that the prime hip-hop Vegas act would have to be LL Cool J – or Will Smith, if he wasn’t too busy making films and slapping people.

    • The Wu Tang are coming off a global tour with Nas in which they sold out arenas for back to back nights.

      I saw them at the O2 (a friend had a box for the show) and they basically just played all the hits straight with no filler, which made for a very happy crowd. The Wu have all got old, as will happen, but Nas is still nice on the mic and is releasing great new music at a steady clip; it was the first time I’d seen him live and he was impressive.

      It didn’t have the energy of a show where a bunch of 20 year olds play tunes everyone is still freshly in love with, but then that was priced in, just the same as going to see James Taylor or Van Morrison 20 years ago. It’s a victory lap for the performer and a nostalgia trip for the crowd.

      There’s a market for legacy Hip Hop shows and people reliving their youth in exactly the same way there is for Rock music. This year’s tour proved it, and no doubt paved the way for this residency.

      In terms of audience response, you wouldn’t expect much from a Vegas crowd, but then this will be a different audience from what was the traditional Vegas crowd, so who knows.

      Don’t think LL Cool J has the same pull as the Wu, but he’s currently touring the US with the Roots and Jazzy Jeff. There’s an audience for this stuff.

      • Well, good.

        Or, as we used to say, def-fresh.

        I thought of Cool J because his first gig in Brixton in 1987 involved him climbing out of the cassette drawer of a gigantic boombox. “This Is Spinal Rap” scoffed one of the inkie weeklies but it was actually more like Vegas.

  6. I stumbled across that Eric Whitacre Godzilla extravaganza quite by accident.

    It really is a hoot.: the Estonian choir certainly seem to be having fun performing it.

    Here’s the story behind this theme for an imaginary movie. (Suddenly I’m thinking of Jack Bruce and his Imaginary Western.)

    https://windliterature.org/2017/12/12/godzilla-eats-las-vegas-by-eric-whitacre/

    “Tom Leslie asked me to write another piece for the group as I was leaving, and I thought it would be a blast to do something completely ridiculous. The players are called upon to scream in terror, dress like Elvises (Elvi), and play in about thirty different styles from mambo to cheesy lounge music. The audience follows a ‘script’ that I wrote simulating a campy, over the top Godzilla movie (is there any other kind?).

    “The idea that this piece is being played all over the world in such serious concert venues is the single funniest thing I have ever heard. It has been played on the steps of the Capitol by the United States Marine Band, by the Scottish National Wind Symphony (they play in kilts, so help me God), and I have a video of a Japanese audience visibly confused and shaken by the whole experience. Can you imagine? I’m laughing my head off even as I write this!”

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