For hip kitsch, ‘Vs.’ is a rockin’ time at Liberace Museum

By John Katsilometes

Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009 | 7:33 p.m.

Like the tetherball-sized rhinestone on display in the museum showroom, the showcases and cabaret performances at Liberace Museum just seem to grow in legend. If I spend any more time at this place, they’re going to start using me as the cape model, but it is never a wasted trip. Wednesday night it was for “Vs. A Rock Cabaret” at the warm-and-cozy Liberace Cabaret.

As we’ve noted previously, the format of these monthly showcases hosted and produced by Ali Spuck and Keely Vasquez is simply imaginative: Ask the audience to choose competing music genres and halve the performance to reflect those genres in the next production. Last night, the museum rocked as it never has as Spuck and Vasquez helped roll out “1967 vs. 1987.” The ’67 set played to the intermission, and ’87 closed the show.

Backed by the “Ultimate Manilow” band (music director and pianist Joey Melotti, Mike Lent on guitar, Ian Martin on bass, Russ McKinnon on drums, Ron Pedley on keyboards), the music selections were truly inspired. The 1967 lineup was Spuck with “Somebody to Love” (Jefferson Airplane), Vasquez with “To Sir With Love” (Lulu, with the No. 1 song from that year), Charl Brown of “Jersey Boys” backed by Spuck, Vasquez, Kristofer McNeeley of “Jersey Boys,” Lauren Tartaglia, Jonathan Rodriguez, Andrea Best and Lara Filip with “Where Do I Go?” (from “Hair”), Filip with “I Think We’re Alone Now” (Tommy James and the Shondells in 1967, Tiffany in 1987), Jason Andino of Formality with “Ode to Billie Joe” (Bobbie Gentry), Best of “High School Musical” with “Piece of My Heart” (Janis Joplin), and Drew Johnson with members of the Doors tribute band Mojo Rising with “Light My Fire.”

The 1987 hit parade was Melotti and the band with “The Way It Is” (Bruce Hornsby), Diane Gordon of Wayne Brady’s “Making It Up” with “Wanted Dead or Alive” (Bon Jovi), Brown with “Let’s Wait Awhile” (Janet Jackson), Spuck with “Victim of Love” (Erasure, one of the night’s great moments), Best, Vasquez and Filip with “Anything for You” (Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine), McNeeley with an acoustic “With or Without You” (U2), Vasquez and Spuck with “Alone” (Heart), and in a roaring finale, Andino, joined by Mike Neufeld on guitar and Spuck and Vasquez on backing vocals, with “Livin’ on a Prayer” (Bon Jovi).

It was a lot of show for a $25 donation to the museum, and the room that seats 86 officially was overflowing with happy audience members. It’s certainly a showroom-quality production, and the two producers say they are driven to take it to that level somewhere in Las Vegas. Spuck, who is married to McNeeley, is a Broadway-caliber performer who has been nominated for a Los Angeles Ovation Award (presented by the Los Angeles Stage Alliance) for Featured Actress in a Musical for her work in “It Came From Beyond.” On Sunday she began her own one-woman show at the museum, “Ali Spuck: Here I Am.” Vasquez is a backing singer for Barry Manilow at the L.V. Hilton who as earned acclaim as a singer/actress in Chicago. They usually wear out the crowd, but not last night. For the first time, the audience demanded an encore.

“We don’t have any more songs!” Spuck implored, in mock anguish. “You’ve got to leave now!

The production will likely continue at the museum for the next few months. After a hotly contested audience vote by applause, the next format will be “Forgive vs. Forget,” which somehow edged “John vs. Paul” (“Fire vs. Rain” was a distant third). The date for that performance has not yet been set, so go to the "Vs." Web site for information.

After the show, as the buzzing audience left the museum, Vasquez said it was a challenge making the case to performers that it was worth all the work to put on the production. It’s far more work than any open-mic night, requiring rehearsals and sound checks and the lugging of instruments. Reaching the general public, too, is not easy, she said, because “Nobody knows who we are.”

Not yet, anyway. Give it a few more versus.