VIP tickets flying fast at Rock in Rio; Michael Grimm expands his playground

By John Katsilometes

Published Friday, Jan. 23, 2015 | 5 p.m.

Updated Friday, Jan. 23, 2015 | 8:22 p.m.

We’re bracing for it here at The Kats Report. A weekend of significance is in the offing, with Bob Anderson’s tribute production “Frank: The Man, The Music” opening Saturday night at Palazzo. Concurrently, Nevada Ballet Theater celebrates its annual Black & White Gala at Aria with Debbie Allen as this year’s Woman of the Year. In an unrelated event that night, Zowie Bowie throws it down at Sunset Station’s Club Madrid.

We’ve got it all here in VegasVille. A little raking before we scramble back to the scene:

• Roberta Medina is a voice of reason as Rock in Rio USA approaches. The dates, again, are May 8-9 and 15-16 at MGM Resorts Festival Grounds. Tickets went on sale this week at RockinRio.com. Within 48 hours, the 4,000 VIP tickets for the May 9 event — headlined by event vets Metallica — sold out.

Officials cannot emphasize enough that there will be no parking at the site and are going to release a detailed park-and-ride blueprint in the weeks ahead. They continually float the idea that the Las Vegas Monorail is going to be a significant component to that plan, but there are limits to the Monorail’s value in such a spectacle. Visitors will need to know that the trains don’t run on the west side of the Strip, where the Festival Grounds are located, for starters. They can’t deliver fans to the site itself.

The event’s executive vice president and daughter of co-founder Robert Medina, Roberta Medina, has been in town this week to survey the event’s progress. During a confab at Wolfgang Puck’s at MGM Grand this week, she said that earlier estimates of an 80,000-per-night crowd have been aggressively optimistic. That 80,000 number is about the total capacity of the nearly 50-acre parcel. Similar to the way MGM Resorts Vice President of Entertainment Chris Baldizan has lowered estimates from 80,000 per day to 60,000, Medina is preaching caution. She’s estimating 50,000 per day as a reasonable total attendance, or 200,000 total attendees.

And Medina winced when I broached the subject of staging the festival each year, rather than every other year, as is currently planned (2017 and ’19, specifically). To paraphrase, it’s very early to be talking of a Rock in Rio USA event in Las Vegas in 2016. Better to let it grow on that heretofore-unused patch of the Strip.

• Similar to a pitcher who throws on the side between starts to keep sharp, Michael Grimm is airing it out at a couple of unexpected venues: Brooklyn Bridge at New York-New York and Mizuya Lounge at Mandalay Bay. I caught him Sunday at the bridge as he strummed his acoustic and sent his voice soaring over the Strip behind him. Grimm’s under-the-radar appearances are from 5 to 9 p.m. Sundays and Mondays; he follows with a set Sunday at Mizuya, which is loaded with live music every night (Phoenix, Paul Charles, The Limit, The Rebels and Patty Janura are in the rotation).

The Season 4 champion of “America’s Got Talent,” Grimm has always said he just wants a place to play, and he has found that. He’s back at Veil at the Silverton on Jan. 31, the final night of a three-show run at that showroom. He regularly headlines at Ron DeCar’s Viva Event Center on alternating Saturdays. It’s not uncommon for some of Grimm’s fellow “AGT” alumni to show up at the show; Sin City Theater magician Murray Sawchuck was in the audience a couple of weeks ago. The show has a distinctive Las Vegas bond, with two champs — Grimm and Terry Fator — performing regularly here, Fator a headliner at the Mirage.

Grimm would love to build a show in permanent residency in this city, and there’s no doubt a lot of his fellow entertainers would help make that happen. Grimm has always had the chops, and he always delivers, whether in a showroom or on a bar stool on the Strip.

• One of the great comeback stories in Strip entertainment is onstage nightly at “Steve Wynn’s Showstoppers” in the form of the fine trumpet player Gary Cordell. I met Cordell several years ago when he was a member of the “Monty Python’s Spamalot” orchestra at Encore Theater, now home to “Showstoppers.” Cordell was the man who played the infamous “Spamahorn” during “Spamalot.” In that bit, he began playing “Call to the Post” from the orchestra pit before being shot by the show’s music director, the always on-target Wayne Green. He played the final notes comically in a downward spiral, simultaneously signaling the player’s demise and start of the show.

Years later, Cordell is back at Encore Theater in a Wynn show, but his return has been more dramatic than comedic. On Nov. 13, after experiencing a slight burning in his chest, he was told that he had four seriously blocked arteries in his heart. The artery-blockage stats: 90, 95, 95 and 100 percent. Cordell underwent quadruple-bypass surgery that day.

What was most unnerving was that Cordell was suffering minor discomfort, only a burning sensation in his chest he attributed to stress. It was far worse. Nonetheless, Cordell was back onstage and playing full throttle with the orchestra in “Showstoppers” on Dec. 15, the day before the show’s opening for previews.

As always, Cordell was at Composers Showcase in the Smith Center’s Cabaret Jazz on Wednesday night looking and sounding great. As for the “Spamahorn,” which was a plastic tube bedazzled with the word “Vegas“ and never heard from after the show closed in 2008, we know where it is: Cordell kept it. One day, we need a revival of that instrument, if not at “Showstoppers,“ at the Showcase. Cordell can play it as his personal triumph.

• Wednesday is brimming with Pop in VegasVille, as David Perrico’s Pop Evolution returns to Cabaret Jazz for a 10 p.m. performance (tickets are $15 to $30; hit TheSmithCenterLV.com for purchasing autonomy), and that is the night he is releasing the “David Perrico Pop Evolution Live!” CD. The album was recorded during Pop Evo’s run at the Stratosphere. “Circus,” “Hot for Teacher,” “Dr. Feelgood” and “Barracuda” are among the covers, with a few Perrico originals dropped in. Also, Perrico continues his Pop Strings effort Saturday night at Rocks Lounge at Red Rock Resort — where dreams come true! Check it out, even if you’re at the NBT event because it’s an 11 p.m. start. Just how we like it.

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