Courtesy Sahara Las Vegas
The cast of Reckless In Vegas celebrates its recent opening at Sahara Las Vegas.
Monday, July 25, 2022 | 2 a.m.
The pieces have been falling into place since the Meruelo Group purchased what was then SLS on the north end of the Las Vegas Strip in 2018. After returning to its original name as Sahara Las Vegas and embarking on a $150 million renovation, the resort has added several new restaurants and a revamped pool and casino floor, and the dramatic redesign of its porte cochere main entrance was completed earlier this month.
Sahara now has a modern look and feel with noticeable accents from its iconic Vegas past, and its expanding live entertainment lineup is following suit. Along with the comedy residency of stand-up great Eddie Griffin and the electrifying “Magic Mike Live,” a new show recently opened in the Sahara Theatre that seems like a natural fit for the new dynamic.
Reckless In Vegas — the veteran rock trio of Michael Shapiro on vocals and guitar, Jack E. Roth on drums and Chris Nichols on bass — played some preview shows last month at the Sahara Theatre before its first ticketed residency shows on June 30 and July 1. The group specializes in amped-up covers of favorite tracks by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and other Vegas legends, and mixes in choreography from a small team of dancers, extra costumes and stage scenery and other production elements to create a harder-edged version of a classic Vegas lounge act. As the website describes, it’s like the Rat Pack mixed with Green Day.
The show is sharing the space with the Eddie Griffin Experience, which runs Monday through Wednesday, conveniently leaving Saturday nights open for other special events or possible touring acts. This venue was originally a nightclub when SLS opened in 2014 and eventually turned into the multipurpose entertainment room known as the Foundry, but it hasn’t seen consistent programming until recently.
Reckless In Vegas frontman Shapiro, who grew up in Las Vegas and moved away but returned about seven years ago, said the show, like the Sahara itself, is designed to appeal to both locals and tourists.
“We’ve done plenty of shows at the Smith Center and at Station [Casinos] and Boyd [Gaming] properties, and we started to build a pretty good following. We realized there’s just a lot of people in town that have to our shows, and we just want to give back to them,” he said. “Some locals are reluctant to come to the Strip because of high prices and parking fees and overpriced cocktails, and because it’s just hard to get in and out of casinos. The Sahara is a really unique, beautiful boutique property, it’s moderately priced, and it’s an easy in and out.”
And his band is all about celebrating the musical heritage of the city, which is why the nearly 70-year-old casino — which has a unique entertainment history of its own that includes Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, Louis Prima, Jack Benny, George Carlin, Tina Turner and many more — is giving Reckless a shot.
“Our whole mission is to keep vintage Vegas alive and present it with a modern approach,” Shapiro said. “We want to pay homage but make it more accessible to people who maybe want to have more edge to it.”
As if the music and the environment weren’t already welcoming for locals, the show has also launched the Ante Up program, a collaboration connecting Southern Nevada businesses with local charities. Participating businesses can select their own charity of one of the show’s partners (St. Jude’s Ranch for Children or Notoriety Gives) and a portion of every ticket sold to Reckless In Vegas at Sahara Las Vegas is donated.
Shapiro said his friend Mark Shunock’s Mondays Dark charity shows inspired the program’s creation. “We’re trying to lock up sponsors now for the rest of the year. The idea that we’re onstage playing music to someone who bought a ticket and some of the money is going to a local charity, it doesn’t get better than that,” he said.
Reckless In Vegas performs at 8:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays at the Sahara Theatre, with tickets starting at $50. For more information, visit saharalasvegas.com.
