From Drake to Adele, what’s behind the Las Vegas residency renaissance?
▶ Celine Dion turned the extended showcases into a sure bet for chart-toppers in the 2000s, but their roots stretch back to a gamble in the ’40s, 40s, the Rat Pack and Elvis, writes Gemma White
For musicians, Las Vegas was once the place careers went to die and old chart-toppers ended their days singing in cheesy lounge bars on the Strip.
Now, having played host to concert residencies from Britney Spears, Maroon 5 and Drake over the past few years, it has become one of the top places in the world for stars to perform.
Adele is the latest superstar to call Vegas her temporary home thanks to her two-part, five-month run at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, for which she was reportedly paid $240 million.
However, it hasn’t always been that way. Here’s what’s behind the recent revival and how it all began.
The American singer and pianist Liberace is widely credited with being the first performer to establish a Vegas residency.
Famous for his ornate outfits, elaborate stage shows and flamboyantly luxurious lifestyle, the piano prodigy dubbed “Mr Showtime” first played in Vegas in 1944.
Ten years later, Liberace was offered his own show at the Riviera Hotel and Casino for $50,000 a week, a record-breaking sum at the time. When he returned to Vegas in the 1980s, towards the end of his career, he commanded $300,000 per week.
While Liberace paved the way for what performers could get paid in Sin City, it was the Rat Pack who ushered in a new era of cool in the 1950s and ‘60s.
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop regularly visited Vegas for long weekends to relax by the pool and escape the Los Angeles paparazzi.
Choosing the city as the location for filming the original Ocean’s 11 in 1960, their presence culminated in one of Vegas’s most famous performances, The Summit at the Sands.
The Rat Pack hit the stage at the Sands Hotel and Casino in January and February 1960, attracting more than 34,000 visitors. Elvis Presley is also synonymous with Vegas, but it was only later in his career that he enjoyed success in the city.
The king of rock ‘n’ roll’s debut on stage at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino in April 1956 was a resounding flop. At the time, Vegas was popular with families and an older crowd who were a far cry from the screaming teenagers who had recently propelled
Heartbreak Hotel to the top of the US charts.
After filming Viva Las Vegas in the city in 1963, and marrying Priscilla Beaulieu at the Aladdin Hotel in 1967,
Elvis’s relationship with Vegas was immortalised with his much-touted comeback at the Las Vegas International Hotel in July 1969, which set a record with 101,500 people attending the show’s four-week run.
Owing to the success of the shows, Elvis signed a residency deal to return twice a year over the next five years, and the hotel, now called the Las Vegas Hilton, created the 464-square-metre Elvis Suite on the 30th floor for him to stay in.
While Elvis’s comeback was a success, it cemented the idea that Vegas was where stars went for a final payday in the winter of their careers.
Caesars Palace vice president Kurt Melien previously told the
Daily Telegraph that Sin City was “the place where singers went to die, where they could earn a crust in their twilight years entertaining tourists”.
The counterculture movement of the 1960s and ‘70s caused a shift in societal and cultural tastes. The Beatles, The Th R Rolling lli Stones, S Wood- Wd stock, the anti-Vietnam War movement, hippy and mod culture all combined to usher in the new era in which big festivals and intimate gigs were in and the garish lights of Vegas were out.
“There used to be a certain element of cheesiness to playing in Vegas,” music journalist Jim Farber previously told Marketwatch. “I talked to Cher about that, and she referred to it as an ‘elephant ‘ele graveyard where talent tale goes to die’ – and she was speaking of herself.” her
Ca Canadian singer Celine Dion Dio is widely credited as the t performer who revitalised rev Vegas’ appeal to tom musicians.
Fo For Dion’s A New Day residency, res which ran for five years from 2003, Caesars sar Palace built the singer her own theatre, The Colosseum, Co and paid her $100 $1 million, plus 50 per cent ce of the profits. The show sh was an instant success, grossing more than $385 million as more than three million people watch her perform across 717 shows.
“Celine was a pioneer without question,” Melien said.
“Twenty years ago, we couldn’t have got someone the stature of Britney Spears to appear in Vegas. Stars like her would never have considered it if Celine hadn’t paved the way. She changed the face of modern Vegas.”
Elvis is synonymous with Vegas, but it was only later in his career that he enjoyed success there