Last Thursday night’s inaugural Trump Entertainment Resorts Employee Talent Show was surprising on several fronts.
Before delving into them all, I’ll admit that I agreed to be one of the contest’s five judges more out of guilt than for any other reason. Trump public relations manager Mary Moyer invited me to judge a Nathan’s hot-dog eating contest last summer and I declined, so I thought I owed her one when she asked me to judge again. Besides that, all the proceeds from the talent show’s $10 admission fee ($3 for kids) went to benefit the United Way of Atlantic County. (more…)

Lily Tomlin unleashed a wonderful combination of characters featuring both classic bits and snappy new material in her Atlantic City debut Saturday night (Oct. 24) at the Borgata. Her show is a fascinating combination of personal remembrances and witty social and political commentary presented by the 70-year-old Tomlin as herself, and through a series of her famous characters. Those characters include Ernestine the telephone operator; Lily’s parents; 6-year-old Edith Ann; Sister Boogie Woman and Madame Lupe, “the world’s oldest beauty expert.”

Tomlin as herself, as Ernestine and above, as Edith Ann.

Tomlin doesn’t do many one-liners so it is hard to express the essence of her show in words. For example, Ernestine who began as the queen of Ma Bell when it was the only phone company, used to tell us that the phone company is omnipotent: “That’s potent with an omni in front of it.” Nowadays Ernestine has found a new avenue to express her lack of compassion — she’s a claims specialist for a heath insurance company, denying healthcare for everyone. “Being blind is a pre-existing condition,” snorts Ernestine. “Your health is our business, not our concern.”

As herself, she talks about after all these decades, year after year, we finally elected a president … from Hawaii.” She also complains about the negativity surrounding the current administration and those terrible rumors that his Portuguese water dog, “is not really from Portugal.”

One of my favorites bits was her classic about her always wanting to be the world’s best waitress but that TV stardom on Laugh-In got in the way.

Tomlin is as sharp as ever, bursting with energy and ideas that create a roomful of happy, laughing fans.

The finale.

If you’re looking for a fun night for a very reasonable price, check out Footloose at the Tropicana, the 1984 hit movie musical starring Kevin Bacon that was later turned into a hit stage musical. The version at the Trop is very well acted, finding the emotion in a story that has more emotion and depth than the standard musical plot thanks to its movie roots.

The dancing and singing is of a regional quality, which is why this production is so reasonably priced at $25. The cast includes Peter Kriss as Ren; Sara Ruzicka as Ariel Moore; Mike Kelton as Willard; Liz Clark Golson as Rusty; Danielle Arci as Wendy Jo; Michael James Hegarty as Rev. Shaw Moore and Allison Mickelson as Vi Moore. Mickelson is a regular performer with Long Beach Island’s Surflight Theater as performer, teacher and instrumentalist.

Here are some pictures from the show.

The girls.

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As the big-haired half of the famed Allen & Rossi comedy act, Marty Allen is probably still a household name among those old enough to remember when standup routines did not get more risqué than this: “If a guy talks dirty to a girl it’s sexual harassment. If a girl talks dirty to a guy it’s $3.99 a minute.” Allen, now 87 but still performing standup, recently checked in with AC Weekly publisher Lew Steiner, whom he got to know through regular standup acts in A.C. casinos over the years. Perhaps known best for perpetual appearances on the Hollywood Squares, the Ed Sullivan Show and for his catch phrase “Hello Dere,” Allen and his current partner, pianist-singer Karon Kate Blackwell — also his wife of 25 years, completed a series of shows at nightclubs in New York and New Jersey earlier this month before setting sail from New York City on Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. “We’re favorites with the cruise lines,” Allen tells Steiner in a hand-written letter (who still does that these days?) following their recent phone conversation. “We work clean and have an act that entertains and never offends.” Generally, according to a glowing review in the Las Vegas Sun that Allen included with the letter, Blackwell opens their show with her golden voice before serving as a sort of straight man for Allen when he does his standup. An excerpt from the article notes: “What a contrast. Blackwell: tall, shapely, groomed. Allen: short, shapeless, perpetually disheveled and still sporting the trademark haircut that apparently was inspired by contact with an electrical outlet when he was a young man.” According to Allen’s Web site, the couple will be performing on different Royal Caribbean Cruise Line ships from last September through mid-December. If you plan to take to the high seas soon, maybe you can check them out. (more…)

Van the Man at Caesars (Nick Valinote)

The great Van Morrison took his recent tour to Atlantic City on Saturday, Aug. 8, performing his groundbreaking 1968 release Astral Weeks in its entirety at Caesars.

The show was sold out; if you missed it a live CD and DVD from Morrison’s performance of Astral Weeks at the Hollywood Bowl is available.

Dylan in Lakewood, N.J. on July 23

In a long, tight-fitting purple coat, a chilly mist blowing against the rim of his pale gray Stetson, Bob Dylan took the stage of FirstEnergy Park in Lakewood N. J., Thursday night (July 23) with his five-piece band, following two stellar performances by the evening’s triple bill co-headliners Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp (Nelson’s set preceded Mellencamp’s).

It rained hard during the first portion of the show— but it poured down even harder as the throngs of concertgoers were initially (and unbelievably slowly) lined up, searched (for cameras presumably, even though several members of the audience near the outfield stage snapped away on their respective iPhones throughout the evening; one guy even snuck in an enormous camera with an 18-inch lense!) and then ushered into the damp ballfield.

Dylan and his approximately five-year-old band took the stage as the sun was setting. Black leather coats for most of the boys (except drummer George Recile and steel guitarist/violinist Donny Herron) along with badass black hats. Along with his aforementioned coat, Dylan had on black pants with white piping down the sides and grabbed harmonicas off and on during his striking set from the top of a speaker system behind his Korg keyboard. He grinned a few times. He smiled at least twice. He slithered his way around a beautiful “Girl of the North Country” and a tribute (perhaps) to the crowd with an upbeat yet heartfelt versin of “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall.”

Blues and recent material ruled the evening with half of the set list comprised of tunes from his last three albums. From 2001’s eerily released Love and Theft (it hit the streets 9/11, 2001) the “poet laureate of rock” blasted out gutsy versions of “Lonesome Day Blues,” “Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum” and “Honest With Me.”

Dylan’s band closed the main portion of its set with selections from 2007’s Modern Times. “Workingman’s Blues #2” featured many highlights including Dylan’s crisp vocals and dirty harmonica solos as well as the band playing around with the song’s tempo, which added another dynamic edge to this very timely tune. Also from MT, “Ain’t Talkin’” was perfect for the occasion of a soaked, humid and rainy summer night. A rushed version of “Thunder on the Mountain” made me wonder why he still plays it nearly every night when he has hundreds upon hundreds of other songs to choose from.

Unlike during most other shows during this minor-league baseball stadium tour with Nelson and Mellencamp, Dylan barely referenced his latest studio record, Together Through Life (released at the end of April), slipping one of the album’s blues rockers into the middle of his nightly encore sandwich comprised of “Like A Rolling Stone,” “Jolene” and “All Along The Watchtower.”

Before Dylan and company wrap up the “Bob Dylan Show” tour on Aug. 16 in Stateline, Nev., there are more than a dozen dates remaining on the schedule, including tonight’s show down in Norfolk, Virginia’s Harbor Park. The show came to Aberdeen, Md., at Ripken Stadium, Friday night (July 24). By midnight, the show’s set list had already been posted by a “Fabe” on one Dylan fan site:

Set List July 24th – Aberdeen, Maryland

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right

The Levee’s Gonna Break

Spirit On the Water

It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)

I Feel a Change Comin’ On

Honest With Me

Forgetful Heart

Highway 61 Revisited

Nettie Moore

Thunder On the Mountain

Like A Rolling Stone

Jolene

All Along the Watchtower

The posting, discussing and uploading of set lists and recordings of Dylan concerts has become an eUniverse unto itself with up-to-the-song set-list postings spilling out onto the Web, right from the shows and usually from a Dylan die-hard’s hand-held device. All you could ever want to know about a particular concert during Dylan’s two-decade-plus Never Ending Tour can be found on the Dylan fan and news site Expectingrain.com. That’s where you can find out what Dylan chose to bless the crowd with tonight.

(Photo by “John”  who also uses the handle TalesofYankeePower in the expectingrain.com discussion forums.)

The marriage between Neil Goldberg’s Cirque Dreams and the Trump Organization continues this summer, although at a new venue. After years of performances at the Trump Plaza, the Taj’s Xanadu Theatre has been renamed the Cirque Dreams Theatre for the run of Cirque Dreams Pandemonia, now to Sept. 6.

Not only is the new show fresh and vibrant with some cool new circus performers, Goldberg announced that Cirque Dreams and Taj are holding a contest to find one lucky and talented individual who has what it takes to perform in the show. The contest takes place on Saturday, July 18, 10am-1pm in the theater. There is no age limit.

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Vince Gill onstage at Caesars

Vince Gill played to a packed house Saturday night at Caesars. His wonderful 19-song set included plenty of fan favorites like “When I Call Your Name,” ‘One More Last Chance,” “Don’t Let Our Love Start Slipping Away,” “Oklahoma Borderline,” “Whenever You Come Around” and “Look at Us.” He also included songs from his wonderful box set These Days, including the incredible jazz balled “Faint of Heart,” another terrific ballad, “The Reason Why,” and from the country rock album, “Cowboy Up.”
A highlight was certainly his tribute to his late brother, “Go Rest High on That Mountain.”
It was surprising that Gill gets hecklers, but one fan in the front row wouldn’t shut up early on. There was also the guy who yelled, “Take it off,” a first coming from a guy, Gill suggested, earning a big laugh. He was also happy that fans were “pissed off” that country radio isn’t playing his music anymore.
If you’re a true Vince Gill fans and haven’t bought his 4-album set These Days, why not? It’s a career-defining achievement by one of the best country artists in the history of country & western music.

The French Canadian production team that put the “Best” in the Best In Broadway show that played at the Trop earlier this year, is back with another terrific music review at the casino. Premier Choix and producers Mario Bazinet and Nathalie Le Gruiec have cobbled together a large collection of “songs the whole world sings” in presenting Piano Men, a dazzling tribute to such masters of the keyboards as Billy Joel, Elton John, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Barry Manilow. In a brisk 75-minute show, the talented foursome of Martin Lacasse (Billy Joel, Little Richard); Stephane Menard (Elton John, Jerry Lee Lewis); Dennis Matthews (Ray Charles, Fats Domino) and Francis Mondour (Barry Manilow) unleash 55 songs. Their performances are enhanced by a fifth piano man, musical conductor Michel Ferrari, and a terrific, horn-heavy backing band. At some point the pianists are bound to produce a favorite song or two … or a dozen.
My personal favorite was the adorable Martin Lacasse who was a dynamo in the Billy Joel segment with “Honesty,” “She’s Always A Women To Me,” “It’s Stil Rock And Roll To Me,” “Tell Her About It” and “Uptown Girl.” Other highlights included Stephane Menard’s Elton tribute (”Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down,” “Bennie and The Jets”), and Philadelphia native Dennis Matthews channeling Ray Charles (”What I Say,” “Georgia On My Mind,” “Hit The Road Jack” and “Unchain My Heart”). At only $25 a ticket, this show is an incredible deal as well.
Pictured from the top: Martin Lacasse, Stephand Menard, Francis Mondour and Dennis Matthews.

If you didn’t know that Miranda Lambert was a country singer and happened into her set at the House of Blues on Thursday (Aug. 7), you might argue with the “country” label. While Lambert did slow it down a couple of times for some heartfelt country angst, for the most part she was a total rocker girrl during her sizzling set at the HOB. Of course these days with Kid Rock, Jessica Simpson and Darius Rucker on the country charts, the face of country music is changing, becoming more relevant for a younger audience.
Miranda Lambert is a Texas tootsie providing a nice shot of new blood. She wrote or co-wrote most of the songs on her current album Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and performed most of them for an enthusiastic crowd at the Music Hall. Show highlights included the title track “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” to get the party started, “Famous In A Small Town,” a zippy cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Traveling Band,” the dynamic rock anthem about love gone bad, “Down,” and the love-gone-bad ballad “Desperation.” “More Like Her” was a beautiful country lament and Lambert included a couple of hits from her debut album, “Me and Charlie Talking” and “Kerosene.” The audience exploded when Lambert rocked out with her country/rock anthem about a women who won’t take being abused, “Gunpowder and Lead.”
It was a great night of country rock from a new star worthy of the acclaim. To read my interview with Lambert in AC Weekly, go here.