SLS Las Vegas has a fighting chance with the Foundry

By John Katsilometes

Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016 | 4:36 p.m.

SLS Las Vegas is a lot like Jake LaMotta. It may have suffered a broken jaw and bloody nose in those early rounds, but it keeps slugging away.

“You never got me down, Ray!” was LaMotta’s message after battling Sugar Ray Robinson. The same is true, impressively, at the former Sahara.

The Foundry is the latest flurry offered by SLS and its parent company, Stockbridge Capital. The 1,800-capacity music hall was formally unveiled last Thursday with a set by multi-instrumentalists Daniel Park and Ben Carey of Lifehouse and the exceptional all-star band Elvis Monroe.

They played “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons and The Beatles’ “Come Together” as a way to shake the beams a bit.

The venue sounded great in a nearly empty setting, and the mix will certainly be more textured with a few hundred bodies in the house. The lighting was dazzling, although we nearly lost sight of Carey entirely amid the strobes.

The stage is wide and tall enough for extensive production, and the spectators’ views are clear throughout the venue.

The immediate comparison was to the old Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel, similar in its layout and capacity. It does have that feel, although with far more seating that the old Hard Rock room.

Another key improvement is there is no bar facing the stage from the back of the hall, which was the sort of distraction that drove Lou Reed, among others, to some serious distraction.

Taking hold in the same spot as the ill-fated Life nightclub, the Foundry is to seat around 600, with 1,850 at its highest capacity. Its booking partner, so crucial to its success, is Live Nation, which has already signed Awolnation for its opening show Feb. 5, kicking off “Big Game” weekend.

Following in line: Lil Wayne with Method Man and Redman on Feb. 6; X Ambassadors on March 26; Adam Lambert on April 1; and Boyce Avenue on April 26. There will be announcements through the spring of additional acts, and count on a few noteworthy comedy stars and more music out of Live Nation.

What won’t likely be produced and presented at Foundry is a production show: Live Nation exec Kurt Melien batted back that idea during Thursday’s media unveiling.

No standard comedy-club lineup either, which was attempted with a run by Bonkerz Comedy Club at the Sayers Club last fall. But there will be single comic headliners booked to the venue.

The challenges facing the Foundry are present across the casino. One is its very location. I’m always reminded of what someone who is very well-educated about Las Vegas resorts said to me a while back: Even a perfectly executed resort would have struggled at first on the site of the old Sahara. There’s just not a lot of incidental traffic pulling into that hotel.

Another concern is the size of the room. That 1,800 number is something many resorts are resisting in today’s Strip entertainment environment, where rooms of 4,000-5,000 (including the new Theater at Monte Carlo) are luring stars acts into an 8- to-12-show residency pocket.

Existing rooms at 1,500-2,000 are either closing or being drawn down. Palazzo Theater and the former “Rock of Ages” theater at Venetian are eliminating or draping over seats for incoming productions and stage shows that can play to 600-700.

I’m hearing of a similar scale-down, too, at the old “Peepshow” theater at Planet Hollywood. Zarkana Theater at Aria is simply closing April 30 and being overtaken by a massive convention expansion. But nobody is building at 1,800 — except SLS.

The competition among entertainment buyers for venues in that capacity range — House of Blues at Mandalay Bay, Pearl Concert Theater at the Palms, Brooklyn Bowl at the Linq Promenade and even the new Joint — is fierce. The field of artists who can hit that number, without pricing itself out of profitability, is narrow.

But the advantage at the Foundry, aside from the room’s refined design and impressive technology, is in Live Nation and SLS nightlife and entertainment head Matt Minichino.

They know the market — and Minichino’s career in Las Vegas covers a stint at the Hard Rock Hotel, where he also ran entertainment and nightlife (and was featured in the unscripted TruTV series “Rehab: Party at the Hard Rock Hotel”).

These are dynamic, energetic, visionary people. The big rehab project now is the Foundry, and this combination of design and strategy is the best chance the hotel has for a KO.

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