VegasChatter

Tags: Openings / Dirk Arthur / Magic / O'Sheas / Freaky Friday / Cheesy Vegas / Magicians / → All Tags

Dirk Arthur Returns to the Strip, Freaky Vegas Rejoices

Normally, as you know, we wait until Freaky Friday to impart this kind of news, but today we have magic news of such breathtaking importance that we thought we should do it straight up and freakify Thursday as well. Dirk Arthur is coming to O’Sheas!

Not just Dirk, either, but his tigers as well. Uncaged. Doing their shizzle between 10 and 40 feet away from you in the showroom upstairs. Incredible.

The 60 minute show – called Dirk Arthur’s Wild Magic - starts September 13 and will run at 7pm and 9pm every night except Wednesday and Friday. They’re promising:

A high-energy show that blends comedy, dance, magic and a rare opportunity to see the largest collection of awe-inspiring large, exotic cats in Las Vegas.

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Tags: Freaky Friday / Openings / Magicians / Paul Vigil / The Mirage / King Ink / Free Vegas / → All Tags

Paul Vigil's Got a New Show, But You'll Need to Drink For This One

If close proximity to strangers bothers you, you'll like his new show

We’re beginning to think of this as The Curse Of VegasChatter. First we show love to Circus Circus, and it ups its resort fee. Now, after we’ve lauded Paul Vigil at King Ink as the only truly free show in Vegas, he goes and starts charging.

We jest (kind of). What’s actually happened is that his free, private weekend shows have gone down so well at the Mirage that they’ve got him to do a proper, full on show every Wednesday at 7pm. And there’s a two drink minimum implemented for this one.

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Tags: Freaky Friday / Magicians / Paul Vigil / Jenny McCarthy / Criss Angel / → All Tags

Listen Up Vegas, Jenny McCarthy Wants Some Magic

We always had Jenny McCarthy down as a pretty good egg, but this week she soared in our estimation with a single tweet:

In vegas. What happened to all the magicians? Looking for a good cheesy show. No tigers and no one with the last name of Angel.

Jenny, we feel you. maybe you’d like to be the celebrity ambassador for our Keep Vegas Magic Alive campaign?

In the meantime, we recommend Paul Vigil. Definitely the best trick turner in this town.

Tags: Freaky Friday / Magicians / Paul Vigil / The Mirage / King Ink / Free Vegas / Mario Barth / → All Tags

Paul Vigil May Just Be The Only Free Show in Vegas. And That's Magic.

Promise that this photo isn't staged - our friend took it and everyfink.

We have, of course, spent the last week mourning the Vegas demise of Luke Jermay. But at the same time as not washing our hair, eating lots of ice cream and reliving the time he refused to read our mind because he'd already met us, we've been getting out there and finding ourselves a new psychic man.

People, not only have we found him, but he’s better than Jermay in that his show is free and the audience is restricted to you and your party. Yes, he will give you a private show for free. And yes, it's fantastic.

His name is Paul Vigil and he works every Friday and Saturday night at King Ink in the Mirage. In fact, he’s Mario Barth’s personal magician or something, and on weekends he’s allowed out of the King Inker’s house to enthrall his inkees and any members of the public who join them.

Vigil does up close street magic (think Blaine rather than Copperfield) and he wanders around the “club” bit of KI asking you if you’d like to see some tricks. Then he does them - to you, for you. Tricks which are, no other word for it, amazeballs.

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Tags: Freaky Friday / Closings / Mindreaders / Magicians / Luke Jermay / O'Sheas / Sad Vegas / → All Tags

Mental! Luke Jermay Is No More In Vegas

Ladies and gents, prepare your best sad faces for we have some deeply depressing news to impart: Luke Jermay has left the Strip.

Not only that, but he’s left Vegas and returned to Blighty. So much for the British invasion (although to be fair we’ve still got Matt Goss and Tom Lowe and, um, if we must, Robin Leach.

What we’re really sad about though is seeing another good magic(ish) show hit the dust. We really liked Mental and much as we love O’Sheas, we think it’s a poorer place without it.

Come on people, let’s support freaky Vegas. Everyone go out and see a magic show this weekend because it's starting to feel like every time you clap for a Cirque show, a mindreader/magician/contortionist dies. Just make sure it’s not Believe.

Tags: Freaky Friday / Magicians / Ariann Black / Westin Casuarina / Openings / → All Tags

Magic! Ariann Black Brings Girl Power to the Westin

We like to think we’re a) feminists and b) up there on our Vegas magicians but it hadn’t occurred to us until the other day that there hasn’t been a lady magician here since the ill-fated Scarlett and her Seductive Ladies of Magic.

Until, that is, last month when Ariann Black opened at the Westin Casuarina. If you haven’t heard of her, she’s been around Vegas a while – she’s performed downtown and at the Riviera, and was the opening act for The Amazing Johnathan the year before last - and she also enjoys the dubious accolade of being the official Female Magician of the Year for 2004 , 2008 and 2009 (dubious because the idea of a female magician makes men laugh, as we found when we hung out at the Westin the other night).

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Tags: Freaky Friday / Magic / Magicians / Wynn / Encore / Shimshi / → All Tags

There's a Magician Roaming Around Wynn and Encore

All your bobbles belong to me.

We’re not sure how we’ve missed this one up until now but Wynn and Encore have had a resident magician/illusionist for the past few months. Shimshi. That’s it, just Shimshi. His resume includes stints at Mirage and Planet Hollywood. In 2008, he was the “last magician standing” on America’s Got Talent. We couldn’t find exactly when he was eliminated other than he didn’t make the final ten. But we’re guessing there was at least one magician that season and he beat them all.

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Tags: Freaky Friday / Closings / Magicians / Magic Shows / Sad Vegas / → All Tags

Is Magic On the Way Out in Vegas?

These people agree that Copperfield’s still got it

We at VegasChatter have absolutely no problem in declaring that we have a thing for magic shows. We love to be astounded, we love to get our little brains churning over how they did it, and we love cursing loudly when David Copperfield magicks a car out of thin air.

But we’re getting worried, because at the moment it seems like the magic shows, they are dying. Lance Burton is going. Siegfried and Roy are officially never coming back. Luke Jermay and Dirk Arthur are both looking for work but, from their silence, not finding much. Steve Wyrick was spotted limping away from Vegas this morning. Even his royal sexiness Copperfield is stuffed away in a grotty theater, when by all sense of what is right in the world, he should be commanding the Strip with his hotness awesome tricks.

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Tags: Freaky Friday / VegasChatter Reviews / Magic / Penn and Teller / Rio Las Vegas / Magicians / → All Tags

Old Material and Not Enough Glitz: Why Penn and Teller Didn't Enchant Us

We’d be smirking if we made $$$$ off recycling our old work, too

Not that we want to kick Vegas magic when it’s down, but as we said yesterday, we checked out Penn and Teller a couple of weeks back at the Rio, and boy were we unimpressed.

To be fair, they’re not our kind of magicians to start with. We love magic, and we love being magicked. We don’t want to see Lance Burton’s wires caught up in the stage lighting (whoopsies). We don’t want to hear that Luke Jermay uses cue cards. And we definitely don’t want Penn and Teller to do a trick and then show us how they did it. Call us numbskulls Luddites, but we’d rather think it really is magic.

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Tags: Freaky Friday / Closings / Magicians / Magic Shows / Steve Wyrick / → All Tags

Who Will Take Steve Wyrick's Place?

Anyone know what’s going on with The Space Formerly Known As The Steve Wyrick Theater?

The lights are off, there’s no one home, but the hoardings are still up and the shop still has Wyrick t-shirts racked up forlornly.

We’re taking it as read that Wyrick and his orange tan are gone for good, but we’re wondering who, if anyone, is going to move in there. And, more importantly, will it be a magician? Hope so.

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Tags: Freaky Friday / Steve Wyrick / Magicians / Magic Shows / → All Tags

The Lights Are On, But Steve Wyrick's Not Home

Sigh. Looks like there’s one less weird thing on the Strip. According to LV Weekly, although the lights are still on, there’s nobody home at the Steve Wyrick Theater in Miracle Mile. Looks like it’s curtains for Wyrick's own show Real Magic.

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Tags: Freaky Friday / Steve Wyrick / Magicians / Magic Shows / → All Tags

Is Steve Wyrick's Disappearing Act for Real?

You’d think magicians’ assistants were more natural teases than the headliners themselves, but illusionist Steve Wyrick is doing a proper line in keeping our interest at the moment. Last week, he seemed to be doing a disappearing act for real when he closed his theatre (the modestly named Steve Wyrick Theater at Miracle Mile) out of the blue and stopped returning calls. Then it got juicy as some of the other entertainers at the theatre sued him for doing a runner without paying them and he still didn't pick up the phone.

But now it appears to be more of a ‘now you see him, now you don’t’ game than a full blown disappearing stunt. Wyrick has posted a statement on his website saying that the closure is merely “temporary” and that it will “reopen and resume full operation by the end of the month.”

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