Las Vegas Road Trip: Day Seven

Feb 21, 2005- Permalink

Our last day in Las Vegas and our entertainment will come from one showroom in one hotel: The Shimmer Cabaret at the Las Vegas Hilton.

The Vegas Hilton is an off-Strip convention hotel with a lot of business clients. Though it boasts the Star Trek Experience attraction and a busy casino, it still comes across as a slightly less hectic place to hang out, which can be a welcome relief after pushing through hordes of tourists on the Strip.

The Shimmer Cabaret is an intimate 300-seat room that plays host to the two acts we were seeing tonight, David Brenner and Aussie Angels. The two shows played in the same room, but they couldn’t have been further apart.

David Brenner has long been a favourite of mine. He’s the comedian they coined the term “observational humour” for and his ability to zoom in on life’s foibles has not diminished. Though the observational elements are still there, Brenner said that he needed to challenge himself in order to stay interested in stand-up. He decided to focus on current events and now read dozens of papers and magazines while watching news shows. He cuts things out or jots them down on index cards and brings his clippings with him on stage, so he can look for new material each and every day. From the war in Iraq, to weight loss, to prosthetic testicles for dogs, Brenner skewers a wide range of targets. His informal nature and the intimate setting made me feel like we were in on the thinking process of this comic icon.

Date: Nightly, Dark Thursdays Time: 8:00 PM

The only thinking an hour after Brenner’s show probably occurred below the belt, if at all. The Aussie Angels are part of the raunchier “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” marketing tack that many hotels are now using. In a city where the British Navy was replaced by the Sirens of TI, it only makes sense to toss eight sexy Aussie girls into a room full of people who’d be willing to go Down Under with them.

Many Las Vegas show have a hierarchy that features dancers and showgirls. The dancers are the shorter gals who can move quickly from hip-hop to ballet and jazz while the showgirls are the tall, leggy ones who can move gracefully with large feather headdresses and heels while strolling around topless.

In Aussie Angels, the hierarchy appears to be a little different. Apparently, some of the girls were cast in the show only to discover the topless requirements when they arrived in Vegas. Some stuck by the letter of their contact, while others had no problem with the skin. Some say that’s just a rumour, but it would go some way in explaining why, in a show with such a small cast, four go topless and the others don’t. All of the girls strut their stuff in solos, but the two most statuesque girls literally leave the audience wanting more while the emcee coos, “Isn’t she a tease!”

Because of the room’s small size and the lack of elaborate sets or costumes, the show does come across as an attempt at a musical production in a strip club. Though the stage is minus a pole, the girls do writhe about, strut through the audience, and pop their tops midway through songs. There’s some awful audience participation moments and the emcees are stuck with awful lines like “Where’s the best place to root in Melbourne? Right, my house!”

Unlike shows like Zumanity and La Femme that mix art with their eroticism, Aussie Angels coms off as a strip show with better choreography. Of course, you can’t hold them to the same critical standards you’d use reviewing a Kubrick flick. If you’re looking for hot, sexy Aussie lasses prancing in their undies, then Aussie Angels will fill the bill. If you’re looking for slightly higher production values considering the price is higher than a strip club cover charge, keep looking.

The Angels left Vegas on April 30th, taking their G-strings to Atlantic City.