Imagine Dragons gives something back; Oscar Goodman sticks his neck out

By John Katsilometes

Friday, Nov. 21, 2014 | 6:30 p.m.

The Kats Report Bureau at this writing is the sports book at Wynn Las Vegas, or as I like to call it, The AvelloDome.

This is an homage to sportsbook overlord Johnny Avello, whose operation is so far reaching that he sets lines on dog racing and dog shows. Among the contests and competitions on which Avello is an expert is the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. He historically sets those lines for entertainment purposes only.

But regardless of the reason for the odds, Avello once said to me, with no hint of irony, “Want me to tell you where to go, Kats?” Avello said. “Go with the Affenpinscher. Him and the Pekingese are neck-and-neck in the Toy category.”

The Affenpinscher did not come in that year. The Pekingese favorite, Malachy, was Best in Show that year, which was 2012.

The reason for this particular visit is not to yap about dogs but to check out the firewall being added to “Le Reve” at Wynn Theater just down the hall from the book. The blazing, hologram effect that appears as a waterfall aflame has just been added to the show in time for its 10th anniversary next year. It cost $3 million and, expectedly, is simply breathtaking.

More on the new act in “Le Reve” at a later time. Let’s rake the scene elsewhere:

• Imagine Dragons hit Sunrise Hospital on Friday afternoon. Not as patients, mind you, but to meet with that hospital’s board to discuss a partnership with the band’s chosen charity, the Tyler Robinson Foundation. A gala is set for Saturday night at Hard Rock Hotel to raise money and awareness for the foundation. The band will play an acoustic set as part of the program co-hosted by former 49er Steve Young and Fox 5 anchor Rachel Smith. Tickets to the event have long been sold out, but donations are still accepted at the website trf.org. The organization provides such assistance in the form of basic household needs (including money to keep up with mortgage payments and utility bills) for families whose children are battling cancer.

Robinson suffered from a rare form of cancer known as Rhabdomyosarcoma and died from a brain tumor in March 2013 at age 17. He lived in Utah and was a huge music fan and particularly fond of Imagine Dragons. The band learned of this through Tyler’s brother, Jesse, and at a show at a Provo club called Velour dedicated the song “It’s Time” to Robinson, who was on his brother’s shoulders during the show.

Robinson had taken the song’s lyrics, “The road to heaven runs through miles of clouded hell,” as his personal theme. The legacy of that friendship between the young fan and the band is the Tyler Robinson Foundation.

Apart from the philanthropic activity, I.D. is headed for the American Music Awards on Sunday and is wrapping the recording of their follow-up to the wildly successful “Night Vision” at their home studio in Las Vegas. The first single is titled “I Bet My Life” and was inspired by frontman Dan Reynolds’ often-contentious relationship with his parents. The album’s title has not been announced.

The band is said to be in talks for some significant appearance in Las Vegas in 2015, likely at one of the outdoor festivals permeating the entertainment scene, but nothing yet is finalized. But I’d bet my … lunch money that we’ll see them, somewhere, under the sun or lights, in VegasVille next year.

• Oscar Goodman has been talking a lot about “necking” lately, but not something you’d find at West Wind Las Vegas 6 Drive-In (#SheckyKats). The former mayor is expanding his dinner conversation series at the Plaza, moving it from the speakeasy at Oscar’s Beef Booze & Broads to the main dining room for the Dec. 11 presentation (the event starts at 6 p.m., cost is $250 for the entire program, call (702) 701-7894 for tickets). This dinner will be a tribute to the city’s “first celebrity chef,” Angie Ruvo, and the family’s famous restaurant on West Sahara Avenue, The Venetian.

Yes, there was a Venetian before the Venetian, famous for Angie’s recipe for neck bones, which will be served that night. The Venetian restaurant was a famous haunt for many legends in Las Vegas and beyond, including Robert De Niro and all members of The Rat Pack, among many of Lou Ruvo’s celebrity friends. Goodman’s talk will center on the efforts of many of his clients who were banned from Las Vegas by then-Sheriff Ralph Lamb but wore disguises to circumvent recognition so that they could visit the Venetian.

“Ralph Lamb is and was a friend of mine, but we butted heads about this,” Goodman said during a phone chat. “He would wait at the airport for these guys to come into Las Vegas, and if he recognized them he’d put them back on the plane and send them home.”

The Venetian restaurant opened in 1966, built on the site of the current Herbs & Rye on West Sahara and Valley View. This is where Larry Ruvo picked up the family’s strong work ethic and learned the power of persuasion. Both qualities served him well as the founder of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Center, for which the Dec. 11 dinner is a fundraiser. For those who want to donate but cannot attend, go to keepmemoryalive.org.

• Some of the numbers recited by guitar great Jerry Lopez this week: 100,000, 70,000, 50,000. Those are sizes of the shows, measured in attendance, during Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca” tour in 1999-2000. That’s 100,000 in Mexico City, 70,000 in Seoul, South Korea, and 50,000 at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas. Lopez played guitar in Martin’s band on the tour, which on Nov. 11, 1999, made a stop at the then-new Mandalay Bay Events Center (I was at that performance, and here is proof).

Martin was back in town for the Latin Grammy Awards and also pulled the drape off his new wax figure at Madame Tussauds at the Venetian. I caught up with Lopez by texting him a publicity photo of Martin waxing nostalgic with his waxed statue. “Great guy!” Lopez said of the human version of Martin. Lopez then sent a shot of he and his brother Gilbert with Martin during that wildly successful tour.

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Lopez says. “I wish all musicians had the opportunity to have that experience at least once in their careers.”

Lopez is just finding his legs after another memorable performance experience, as he and the band he founded, Santa Fe & The Fat City Horns, helped christen the Quantum of the Seas ocean liner. The band is being depicted in a virtual concert on floor-to-ceiling length video screens in the Two70 showroom. They are back at the Lounge at the Palms, their regular gig, at 10:30 p.m. Monday. That number in the house is just 200 or so, but the Healing is always a happening.

• It is likely no one has worked harder on a Kickstarter campaign than Penny Pibbets, who recorded videos each day in the run-up to her deadline on Thursday. The conversation with her “friends” she met at the golf course, the new “Penny Pibbets Show” theme song, and recitation of Shakespeare (“Lend me your ears and I’ll tell you a tale!”) was worth it. Pibbets did make her goal of $19,990, and that total climbed to more than $23,000. The launch of what is to be a 13-show run is Dec. 21 at Art Square Theater in the Arts District. “The Penny Pibbets Show” is a traditional TV talk-show format. “Traditional” ends when Pibbets starts performing. She dreams, specifically, of shopping video of the show to network TV and replacing some of the crap-a-rama on network TV, or somewhere else on TV.

• “Joni & Gina’s Wedding” has divorced from Ron DeCar’s Event Center. The inspired, same-sex spoof of “Tony N’ Tina’s Wedding” was scheduled to be performed weekly through the end of December but could not gain traction at the venue on Las Vegas Boulevard just south of Charleston Boulevard. Great presentation in the club and adjoining Viva Las Vegas wedding chapel, and a very appealing cast, which is now on the hunt for a new room and partner.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.