“Freddy Mercury meets Andrea Bocelli.” That’s one description applied to androgynous vocalist Jimmy Hopper, whom The Palms has signed for a once-a-week concert series. This is a sweet deal for customers: It’s a three-hour show and it’s free.
The seating policy is first come, first served (or, as a French monarch put it, “After me, chaos”) and one can presumably wander in and out as your fancy takes you. We’re talking an old-school Vegas lounge act here, much spoken of but rarely seen of late. (Not to beat on the Riviera but it generated some resentment by curtaining off its lounge and trying to run it as a profit center.)
Jimmy Hopper doesn’t look quite like any Vegas headliner I’ve seen to date (think family-friendly Goth). Gosh knows, we could use a reprieve from the recent string of performers who all too clearly think they’d have been running with the Rat Pack, had they only been playing the Strip 50 years ago. (I’m looking at you, Chris Phillips, and you, Matt Somethingorother.) Short of getting Vince Neil to dust off his Sinatra songbook, I can’t think offhand how George Maloof could have done better.
The Palms’ new Sunday-night crooner will be hanging out his shingle in the room which annually hosts Podcast-a-palooza and which is now being called “The Lounge.” What? That’s its old name? Right, Palms folks did make a big deal last year of calling it something else … lemme see … oh yeah, “The Gossy Room.” Whatever became of that?
I love George Maloof! Palms is the BEST!