My wife is planning our next trip to Vegas in May and researching a few shows for us to see. She's a big fan of Whitney Houston and would like to see the Whitney show at Harrah's. I don't mind Whitney, but a whole show built around a holograph seems, I don't know, goulash. Has anyone at LVA seen it? And if so, can you recommend it?
We assume you mean that a performing hologram seems "ghoulish," rather than like a Hungarian tomato-based stew of meat and vegetables seasoned primarily with paprika?
And yes, you're in luck. We too were curious about a 90-minute Vegas stage show in which a deceased superstar appears as a hologram. So we went to see it and reviewed it in the January 2021 issue of the Las Vegas Advisor.
You'll notice in the following review that we had the same concern that you did, though you'll also see that we eventually overcame it.
Hologrammatic entertainment isn’t new to Las Vegas. Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson ONE has a brief segment with a Jackson hologram busting a few moves near the end of the show. But a full 75-minute concert with a Whitney Houston hologram performing nearly two dozen songs, dancing, saluting the band, and addressing the audience takes the form into an entirely new universe.
The technology that creates Houston as a computer-generated three-dimensional light field projected onto a mostly opaque scrim mid-stage is remarkable. It feels a bit strange, however, especially after the first few songs, to be applauding a computer image — as if you can impart enthusiasm to a hologram. But as the show goes along, with hit after hit, several costume and hairdo changes, and that incredible (remastered) voice coming through the sound system, you stop having to pretend that you’re at a “live” concert. The audience’s response is real. The artifice fades. And in the end, Whitney Houston, one of the most successful recording artists of all time with more than 200 million albums sold, is back from the Great Beyond, right there in front of you, singing her heart out.
The intimacy of the 550-seat Harrah’s Showroom makes you feel even more connected. And one thing’s for sure: Houston, who was known to fall apart personally later in her career, always shows up on time and is in top form as she performs “Higher Love,” “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” “I Will Always Love You,” “How Will I Know?,” “Saving All My Love for You,” and some fine lesser-known songs like “Exhale (Shoop Shoop),” “Step by Step,” “I Believe in You and Me,” and the finale “I’m Every Woman.” Barring a technical glitch, nothing can go wrong with this show, which also features a rockin’ live four-piece band and four dancers, plus three big screens with abstract videos of smoke, clouds, steam, starbursts, rain, lightning, and fire.
It’s good entertainment. But more than that, it might be giving us a glimpse into the future, where performers no longer of this world are resurrected to put on perfect shows night after night. And where better to initiate such a possible future than the world’s Entertainment Capital?
+1 to Bob,,, hilarious! . The idea of a hologram concert/show shouldn't just be for dead and gone entertainers. It could be done for celebrities known to be difficult, unreliable and temperamental. Or for singers like 1960's Tom Jones ("It's Not Unusual"), Mick Jagger and Wayne Newton that are still alive but unable to tour as much because of age or poor health or their singing voice has gotten really bad.