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Wayne Newton
A Concert Review |
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I had two choices. Choice one was to hang out with the
boys who were going gentleman club hopping. This meant spending too
much money on women whom I had no chance of taking home at the end
of the night. Choice two was to go with Trash and Stu Gotz’s
dudette to see Wayne Newton where I knew exactly how much money I
would drop and still got to hang out with women whom I had no chance
of taking home at the end of the night. I opted for Wayne Newton.
As the three of us took our seats I kind of wondered what to
expect. Really, other than "Donke Schoen" and seeing him in
"Vegas Vacation" I wasn’t familiar with the stylings of
Wayne. I surveyed the crowd noticing that the three of us were,
well, some of the youngest people in the crowd, and then the
announcer came on to introduce Wayne.
Entering dressed in a spacesuit and walking down a rainbow
colored ramp, Wayne greeted the audience, the band rose up from
under the stage, and Wayne kicked into a couple of Elvis tunes,
"Norfolk VA" and "Suspicious Minds." It was
during "Suspicious Minds" that I truly realized Wayne
Newton has one of the greatest gigs in existence. Why you ask?
Because at the end of "Suspicious Minds" Wayne started to
work through the crowd. Women all wanted to kiss him, dudes tried to
shake his hand, and Wayne obliged just about everyone (even I got to
shake his hand). But singing wasn’t all this show was about, nope,
Wayne had the joke machine rolling as well. Introducing his piano
player and conductor, Greg Macaluso, Wayne went to grab his
handkerchief from his jacket pocket only to find a pair of ladies
underwear. Wayne seemed shocked, asked whose underwear they were,
and although Greg seemed stymied, all of a sudden Stu’s dudette
screamed out that they were hers. The joke was funny even without
Stu’s dudette blurting out, but now I wondered if Stu knew about
his dudette and the piano player.
As the show continued it was a seeming endless mix of joking and
singing with Wayne spanning lots of different musical stylings. You
had your "You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling" and
"Help Me Make It Through the Night." You also had Wayne
paying tribute to Hank Williams with "I’m So Lonesome I Could
Cry" and of course "Donke Schoen." And although Wayne’s
voice wavered quite a bit, he still knew how to work his fans to
having a great time, a lot of time by just utilizing his band and
back-up singers, especially Jeff Brandt who does some killer
imitations of Tom Jones and Willie Nelson and is pretty good in his
own right at making jokes.
Wayne’s show was everything I expected and then some, and by
the then some I didn’t know Wayne was so talented as a musician.
He kicked butt on a piano solo, impressed me with his guitar
prowess, even wailed on a fiddle and played some banjo. And who
thought all he could do was sing?
Wayne Newton put on one hell of a show even if he did have
trouble hitting some of the high notes. It’s easy to see why he is
called the King of Las Vegas and for Wayne I’m giving him TWO
"It’s good to be the King of Las Vegas" THUMBS UP!! |
