If you’ll pardon the pun, I was particularly intrigued by the concept of Kesha’s mini-residency, this summer, at Intrigue Nightclub, at Wynn Las Vegas.  Anytime you’ve got an artist doing a live-set, in the middle of a nightclub – which requires bringing the room to a dead-stop, the artist going on stage, doing three or four songs, then bringing the music back on – it’s really a crapshoot.  Of course, if there was ever a town in which a crapshoot was meant to be shot, it’s Las Vegas.

I’ve seen these done to varying effect.  Sometimes the transition is flawless; the artist delivers a handful of high-energy numbers that weave seamlessly into the vibe of the evening, and the audience simply goes from facing each other to facing the stage, then back, again.  Other times, there’s a palpable sense of “WTF?!?!” with people talking over the artist, and it’s just frustrating – both for the audience and the performer.  Fortunately, Saturday night’s performance by Kesha fell squarely into the former category.

Of course, to hit at the high-point of the evening, her concert was scheduled for 2am.  And, since I am firmly entrenched in middle-age, this required my staying home on Saturday night, taking a “nap” until midnight, then getting-up, showering, dressing, and driving down to the Strip, arriving promptly at 1:15am.  I did this so I’d have time to grab a cocktail in Intrigue’s Private Club (my favorite room, in town), make sure my turban was on straight, and get photographed with Kesha, on the step-and-repeat, before she took to the stage.

I’ve gotta say it: She was not the Ke$ha I’d read about for years (which I’d jokingly verbalized for years, as “Keh-dollar sign-ha”).  And she was decidedly not the teenager who brushed her teeth with Jack Daniels; nor the 20-something party-girl, in outlandish costumes and make-up, hungry to make an impression.  Instead, I was introduced to a pensive and sweet artist, just shy of 30 (although from my vantage point, she looked far closer to 20, so cheers to her!), who dressed like someone you’d expect to see roller-skating in Venice Beach, and was very So-Cal, by way of 1992.  She was funny and charming, tanned and relaxed, and we laughed about our oddly coordinated ensembles, and which was whose “best” side.

As she was taken around the right side of the club, to the stage, I was escorted around the left, and was seated just behind the DJ, on the VIP stage.  It’s an interesting perspective, because you are seeing the audience from roughly the same point of view as does the performer.  Also, everyone in the audience is looking at you, wondering “Who the hell is that?”

From the moment Kesha was announced by DJ Konflikt, through her set – that included her hits “We R Who We R,” (the lead single from her 2010 EP, Cannibal; it debuted at the top of Billboard’s “Hot 100” chart); “Timber” (her number 1 hit, from Pitbull’s 2013 album, Global Warming: Meltdown); “Your Love is My Drug” (the triple-Platinum single from her 2010 debut album, Animal) – until she concluded with her signature song, “Tik Tok” (if you don’t know this song, you’re Kimmy Schmidt and desperately need to leave the bunker), she had the audience wrapped around her finger. 

Her dancers were cute, and were great foils for Kesha.  They’d pick her up, spin her around, throw glitter at the audience, and blast confetti through her legs.  Through it all, the audience cheered, applauded, screamed, and then screamed some more.

I’m guessing Kesha’s set transpired over a tight 18 minutes (including the couple of short intervals wherein the dancers donned or lost various costume accoutrements and accessories).  Then, after the lights redirected from the stage to the dancefloor, DJ Konflikt announced that it was the birthday of my pal Steven Lockwood (the good-natured marketing maestro for Surrender Nightclub and Encore Beach Club), which not only brought further cheers from the audience, but included a shout-out on the LED Display over the DJ Booth, a cake, and all of the frippery that’s come to entail, including the Vegas Nightclub-version of the Procession of Baked Alaska that one finds on cruise ships (i.e., a serpentine procession, of bustier-clad cocktail servers, holding sparklers over their heads).

It was a hoot!  And while it required “sleeping-in” until midnight, I stayed out until 4am (which I haven’t done in a while), saw some great friends who comprise part of the nightlife demimonde (Wynn Social’s Alex Cordova, Ronn Niccoli, Pauly Freedman, and David Schnitzer; as well as Hakkasan’s Sal Wise, and the stylish sensation that is JRoc – aka Jason Craig), and concluded in the Private Club, eating pizza and chilling to the vinyl grooves of DJ Eddie McDonald, which is really just a sublime way to spend any evening.

Kesha’s Mini-Residency with Wynn Social
Intrigue Nightclub | Wynn Las Vegas
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