57°F
weather icon Mostly Clear

Gordie Brown golden once more in downtown return

Maybe they should call the place the Gordie Nugget.

We jest, but veteran Vegas impressionist headliner Gordie Brown is returning once more to where it all started, the Golden Nugget Showroom. Brown and his self-propelled cast of characters reopen on March 25 for an open-ended residency. He’s onstage at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, and 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturdays. Tickets are $25-$35 (minus fees) and should be onsale by Tuesday.

Brown will be performing to a socially distanced crowd capped at 250 in the 600-seat showroom.

“I’m excited to be back, I tell ya,” Brown said Friday afternoon. “I needed this incentive to be back onstage. I’ve got a lot of new material, and now I need to memorize it (laughs).”

Along with such longtime favorite celebs as Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks/Forrest Gump, Brown has added Macy Gray, Ricky Martin, Lenny Kravitz and Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. He has a longer lineup of presidents than ever, after adding Joe Biden to Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Brown most recently headlined at Golden Nugget for about eight weeks leading to the pandemic shutdown. He was also at the hotel from 2009-2016, and performed at the showroom from his arrival in Las Vegas in 2004-2006.

The well-traveled headliner has also worked at Night Owl Showroom at Hooters, Sin City Theater and The Cabaret at Planet Hollywood, at The Venetian in what is now Sands Showrooms, and V Theater at Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood.

Expect a bevy of voices in a fast-paced production.

“In my show, you should be familiar with every voice,” Brown says. “Except, I have my own unique twist, and I am pretty twisted.”

ACM Awards return?

For the second straight year, the Academy of Country Music Awards show is being telecast from Nashville, set for broadcast April 18 on CBS April 18. The country-music shindig has usually been held at MGM Grand Garden Arena and T-Mobile Arena (the show celebrated its 50th anniversary at AT&T Stadium in Dallas). The show is up for grabs in 2022.

“The Academy has not yet determined a home for the show in 2022 but Las Vegas is a possibility,” an ACM spokeswoman said this week. The show has long been an effective marketing tool for Vegas, beyond the MGM Resorts venues, with the requisite cutaways of the Strip and Fremont Street.

Similarly, Nashville is showing off multiple venues, with the Grand Ole Opry House, Ryman Auditorium and The Bluebird Cafe set to host a three-pronged promotional package. It’s the sort of wide-ranging production that has served Vegas so effectively over the years.

And our city should be back in the mix, possibly as early as next year. As MGM Resorts International Senior Vice President of Entertainment of Booking and Marketing Chris Baldizan said: “The Academy has been a great partner for more than a decade and we’ve had the opportunity to host their Awards shows at both MGM Grand and T-Mobile Arena. In light of the current environment, they have decided to return to Nashville for this year’s show. We are confident that they’ll return to Las Vegas in the near future when it’s safe to do so.”

BMG Group out front

The first Cirque show to return in pandemic likely won’t be a Cirque show. Expect that Blue Man Group, a Cirque acquisition, will be ahead of the field when shows begin to come back as early as this summer. BMG needs that niggling 25-foot moat to be adjusted. If so, they can come back at Luxor before “O,” “Mystere,” “Love,” “Michael Jackson One” and “Ka.”

A ‘Magic’ time

The “Magic Mike Live” Ticketmaster listing is showing “no event found” prompts through 2021 at Sahara. Don’t be fooled. The male revue is effectively blocking those ticket availabilities to open sometime in July, in its new venue. At least, that’s my read of the tease … I mean, tea … leaves, at least. More to come soon from this crew.

Our man Colin

On the topic of shirtless gents, the guys in the Original Chaos rock-cover band are making more per show at Carnaval Court than they did in their showroom productions on the Strip. How? With a stuffed tip jar.

During every set, singer Dai Richards goads the audience to pony up $100 for Colin Cahill to remove his shirt. Cahill, who plays Blue Jackson in “Atomic Saloon Show,” complies. As Richards says, “It works every time.” The guys split the tips, Cahill keeps the shirt, and everyone wins.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.

THE LATEST