KC, Village People to rock Palace Station
THE Kats! Bureau at this writing is Lucky Penny at the Palms. My physical being is at the restaurant’s counter, but my mind is on another Station Casinos property, Palace Station.
I was informed today that KC & The Sunshine Band and the Village People are headlining the hotel’s grand reopening Sept. 15. The show is set for a temporary entertainment venue at the southeast end of the property. Don’t get excited; this will not be a venue for recurring live performances.
Rather, the disco doubleheader is to help celebrate the hotel’s $192 million expansion, which covers 220,000 square feet.
The two-year Palace project is scheduled to be finished by the end of the year, ideally by the time KC unleashes “Boogie Shoes.” The pairing of these two bands makes sense if you know they were at the forefront of the disco revolution in the mid- and late 1970s, and Palace Station opened as The Casino on July 1, 1976.
The Casino was renamed the Bingo Palace a year later and Palace Station in 1983.
The next major project to debut at the hotel is Feast Buffet, which opens Tuesday morning. Four restaurants, a nine-screen Regal Entertainment Group luxury movie theater and (for the particularly adventurous) a new bingo fortress are also in the offing.
With its location on West Sahara Avenue just west of Interstate 15, Palace Station is one of the earliest Las Vegas neighborhood casinos. It has always been cost-friendly, too. When I moved here in ’96, I was introduced to the famed 99-cent margaritas, which were equal parts tasty and debilitating. These days, it’s a 99-cent fizzy water.
Lionel’s endgame
Lionel Richie will have played out “All the Hits” at the Zappos Theater by October. Richie’s next set of dates from Aug. 15 through Oct. 20 will be his final performances at Planet Hollywood Resort’s concert-party venue.
Richie opened his latest residency at the then-axis in April 2016. He also played the venue with the Commodores in November 1978, when it was known as the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts.
Guy who likes to hang …
Billy Bob Thornton held back for an hour at Rocks Lounge at Red Rock Resort on Friday to pose for photos and chat up the commoners after his sold-out performance with his band, The Boxmasters.
A great way to greet people
“Yes, indeedy! Feed the needy!” Eddie Griffin, headliner at The Sayers Club at SLS Las Vegas, used that salutation at his 50th birthday party Sunday night at Eldorado Cantina.
Those in the room included star comic and actor George Lopez (who did not actually urinate on a certain Hollywood Walk of Fame star last week, contrary to some reports) and column fave John Di Domenico (who performs a famous impression of the person honored with that star). Griffin gripped his favorite cocktail combo: Champagne in one hand, tequila in the other.
Rent the tent
News seems to break daily at the Spiegeltent, home of “Absinthe” at Caesars Palace. The venue is now being offered for private parties, corporate events … even Village People-themed weddings. The strategy is similar to how the Rose. Rabbit. Lie. showroom at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas was used as a revenue source before “Opium” took over the venue.
The schedule for “Absinthe” will not change as a result. Private events will work around the show’s twice-nightly performances at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Expanding Gaffigan
Stand-up great Jim Gaffigan is back at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace at 8 p.m. Friday. He’s also returning to Caesars on Nov. 30, with tickets on sale at noon Friday. Gaffigan is a novice wordsmith and a fast-food connoisseur. As he says, “I don’t know much about grammar, but I think kale salad is what they call a double negative.”
Killer TV
Something we learned this weekend from The Killers’ segment on “CBS Sunday Morning.” Frontman Brandon Flowers’ first job out of high school was as a food runner at the since-closed Josef ’s Brasserie restaurant at Aladdin’s Desert Passage mall. Drummer Ronnie Vannucci drove a pedi-cab. And Flowers still has the slip of paper his future wife, Tana, slipped to him the night they met. It was her phone number.
As Flowers said during the interview, “We saw each other, but I would have been too shy to talk to her.”
Washed out
Saturday’s finale of Super Summer Theater’s production of “She Loves Me” at Spring Mountain Ranch State Park was wiped out by rain. The sold-out show was halted during the second number. Up next for SST is “Peter Pan, A Musical Adventure,” playing Aug. 1-18.
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@ reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @ Johnnykats1 on Instagram. As of 9 p.m. Monday:
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Las Vegas police on Monday released body camera footage of two men weaving through traffic in an SUV and shooting at officers during a chase near downtown that left one of the men dead and the other wounded Wednesday morning.
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