Since Garth Brooks has been a money-spinner for Wynncore, rival Venelazzo is seeing Steve Wynn one Tim McGraw and raising him one Faith Hill. So there! Sheldon Adelson was (understandably) absent from today’s big announcement, which was the worst-kept secret in town. (Sheldon’s current prominence in national headlines would have upstaged the event.) Let’s face it, Hill is the draw and McGraw is mostly along from the ride, despite the face-saving “Tim McGraw & Faith Hill” billing. “FAITH HILL andtimmcgraw” would be more like it. It looks to be a variant of their Soul 2 Soul tours, albeit tailored to feature more duets and to the confines of an 1,800-seat theater.
The announcement was held in the soon-to-be-vacant Phantom of the Opera theater. Since its side boxes are populated with 19th century waxworks figures, the press conference had an air of Eugene Ionesco. At least Las Vegas Sands wasn’t announcing a new Broadway show, which would have been like dancing on Phantom‘s grave. At the moment, tickets are only available to Club Grazie members and via certain fan sites. The hoi polloi gets access to seats (theoretically) at 10 a.m., Monday.
Ms. Hill came across as very adept and disarming, while McGraw mostly mumbled from beneath his Stetson, which seems permanently glued to his head. The latter vaguely promised a “cutting edge” production, although it was painfully clear that nobody has a firm idea of what the show is going to be at this point. Windy generalities were the best one could get. The intimacy of performing in an 1,800-seat venue was stressed no end, although that metric did’t really hit home until it was mentioned that Hill and McGraw have been performing to crowds of 50,000-60,000 spectators this summer. McGraw cited Merle Haggard as his seminal influence, while Hill gave the nod to Tammy Wynette. One thing that does appear certain is that the McGraws won’t be genre-hopping but sticking to their C&W roots.
Poor John Katsilometes suffered the fate of being whittled down to matchsticks for pressuring the couple to move to Las Vegas and get involved in the community — and took revenge in a subsequent blog entry. (Mind you, the couple is raising three children; I wouldn’t rear kids in Vegas, not by a long chalk!) McGraw also had the best zinger of the day, when asked if their children would be attending the show: “They were a little upset that we were going to be here and Phantom was going to move out.” Buy that man a beer!
