Hollywood Clubs Establishing Stranglehold On Vegas
Have you ever found yourself standing on top of a table in a Las Vegas club, chugging Grey Goose straight from the bottle, then suddenly overcome by an overwhelming sense of L.A.-flavored deja vu? That simultaneous comforting/unsettling effect has been painstakingly crafted by a host of club owners and promoters who are trying to replicate the Hollywood club experience in Vegas, right down to importing the usual batch of celebrity VIP booth monkeys. From Sunday's LAT:
THE Coldplay show at the Hard Rock club the Joint on that Friday night had Courteney Cox Arquette, Jessica Simpson, Fred Durst, Tommy Lee, Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor, Tara Reid, and Dave Navarro and Carmen Electra among the crowd hanging in the upstairs VIP balcony. The following night, Jessica Alba, members of Linkin Park, Mike Einziger of Incubus, wrestling diva Stacy Kiebler and Leelee Sobieski bounced between shows by Bon Jovi and Nine Inch Nails. Many of the celebrities then turned up at Body English to catch a 1 a.m. performance by Hollywood party band Camp Freddy. [...]
For that weekend, [promoter/Danny Masterson BFF Brent] Bolthouse and the Hard Rock Hotel arranged for a private jet to make two trips back and forth to Los Angeles to shuttle its hottest guests. "Once you set foot on that jet and you see people you know, people who are part of your social circle, it instantly makes you comfortable," he says. Actress Shannon Elizabeth agrees. "You see all your friends here. It's like hanging out at Spider Club on Friday night," she said at the event.
We're glad that the passenger list for the Hard Rock's private jet has been so carefully calibrated to unsure maximum celebrity comfort for the one-hour jaunt to Vegas. No one wants a repeat of the incident when Wilmer Valderrama finished blowing a rail off a flight attendant's cleavage, noticed someone he didn't recognize lounging on a nearby sofa, then spent the last thirty minutes of the flight loudly demanding that the "narc" be given a parachute and ejected over the desert.
Bonus terrifying quotes about the Hollywoodization of Vegas from the piece: "'It's always going to appeal to the younger generation of Hollywood partyers, the Lindsay Lohans and the younger Lindsay Lohans.'"
"'I see it lasting with the Hollywood and celebrity people because of what Peter Morton is doing,; he says, referring to the Hard Rock owner who just announced plans for expansion of the hotel and exclusive condos. 'He's going to create L.A.'s answer to the Hamptons.'"