Tuesday, May 22, 2007 | 7:52 a.m.
Who: Gino Vannelli
When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday and Saturday and Sunday
Where: Flamingo Showroom
Tickets: $75.35-$86.35; 733-3333
Riding a mountain bike through the flatlands of Holland strikes of some sort of symbolism about the biker.
For pop artist Gino Vannelli, it says a lot.
With more than 30 years of success behind him, he has no more mountains to climb, but he continues working hard for the love of it.
Even though a mountain bike may look out of place in a nation without mountains, Vannelli is not concerned with appearances - especially when it comes to his music.
He takes pride in not taking the easy path, which would be to merely perform his past hits at his concerts, picking up his check and going home. Vannelli continues to work hard to evolve.
The native of Canada begins a limited, four-day engagement Wednesday at the Flamingo, where he will be backed by a five-piece band. He will return July 19-21 and may add future dates.
Among Vannelli's hits from the '70s and '80s are "I Just Wanna Stop," "People Gotta Move" and "Living Inside Myself."
In 2005 Vannelli released his 15th album, "These Are the Days," and he says he is working on another between international tours.
He talked to the Sun by telephone from his home near Amsterdam, where he had just completed his nightly bike ride.
Q: Where do you spend most of your time these days?
I live half-time here in Holland and half-time in Oregon.
I have a couple of friends there. I travel so much, I just love the countryside of Oregon. I live out in the Columbia Gorge. It's just a really great place to live. I spend like six months out of the year in Oregon and six months in Europe and Holland. It's great, but I travel so much. I'm always doing concerts all over the world. After my gig at the Flamingo I've got to be in Moscow three days later.
I have a Dutch group that I tour with here in Holland. I also do some big-band stuff with a 60-piece orchestra here. I like to do concerts - London, Naples, Stockholm. I love to tour various parts of the world. People don't realize how big the world is.
By the way, where are you from?
I spent my younger years in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The San Francisco Bay Area was for so many years - '60s, '70s, '80s - really anti-Vegas, you know. It was against what Vegas stood for. But partly you have changed and partly Vegas has changed because now Vegas is more filled with people like you who have a background of the art and a love of the real art and know how to make it work in the real world - so that's what I've found pleasantly changed about Vegas since I last played there in the '70s.
How did the gig with the Flamingo come about?
It's kind of an in-depth story. There's always been a bit of a tug of war between me and the mainstream. For years I definitely refused to be a revue kind of show, doing a medley of my hits, playing as a record - just show up onstage and do it. I've always been too close to the inner sanctum of music to do that. So, in short, I refused to play there.
But oddly enough an agent booked me into the Suncoast a couple of months ago and the show was such a success that people at Harrah's (owner of the Flamingo) wanted to get involved. I was happy because I could really do the music the way I think music should be. I don't think an artist should be a shadow or a statue of himself and pose for the people. This is real, real musicians, a real music show. A lot of heart and soul.
Describe the show. Will it be more of a concert or an intimate evening with a friend?
It's a little bit of it all because of my time in the business and the people that have followed me through the years. In many cases they are interested, or at least curious, to know what I've been up to, what are my thoughts on the world as it is compared to what it was like then. How I've grown up since I started off as a 20-year-old in the business. As I go song to song there's always a little bit of a story, a little bit of background. But definitely it is a concert. It's not a lounge show.
Before the Suncoast, when did you last perform in Vegas?
I hadn't been there since 1979.
Why the long absence? Is it because you didn't want to compromise your art?
That's partly it. (Flamingo president) Don (Marrandino) and a couple of other people at Harrah's are a little bit more music - oriented than most and so I'm not confronted with being A&R-ed to death, as if it's a record company. I really don't want to do that. I have too much fun doing my stuff all over the world.
Don Marrandino knows music. He doesn't make too many bad choices, which says a lot about you.
I appreciate the fact that he wants to give it a go. For me it's great. I don't have to do anything that much different. The room is going to take some thought. We're really giving the room a twice - over. We want to be very alert and inventive. We're trying to make the room sound as best we can. For me, singing and making music is kind of like attending Mass for a Catholic. It's such a great offering for me, a great moment of release and communication, and it's one of the things I love to do the most in my life.
Was it difficult to convince you to take a deal at the Flamingo?
I only got convinced to come when they said take the band and the music the way I see it. A lot of people really balk at an artist that walks onstage and doesn't play his hit record the way it was 35 years ago. I found the people that came to see the three shows at the Suncoast to be very progressive, very tolerant, very open.
Of course I'm not going to play them "Three Blind Mice," but what they hear is the songs they know and in a lot of cases they like a lot.
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