Mr. Dallas' guide to the best clubs in Las Vegas
01:55 PM CST on Monday, January 14, 2008
LAS VEGAS – Three stamps and a wristband. That's what it's taken to reach the innermost sanctum of the mammoth Pure nightclub at Caesars Palace. Before midnight on a Tuesday in December. And not an American Idol runner-up or MTV reality star in view.
Clubbing is no trifling endeavor here. With a red smiley face, black triangle and blue smudge branding his forehand, twined by a yellow paper strap, Mr. Dallas figures he's been cleared to read the National Intelligence Estimate with his Ketel One. The DJ revs up another throbbing conflation of classic rock standard and hip-hop hit. Heads buck in time. Young lasses jostle for a platform spot and writhing room. A ceaseless crush of gawkers circulates around the dance floor, Dante's whirlwind of sinners swept up by their passions.
Three nights of club-hopping crescendo.
Three nights before, Floyd Mayweather Jr. waxed Ricky Hatton in the welterweight championship at the MGM Grand. America's Playground was reclaimed for the crown by about 20,000 British fans of the Manchester challenger.
They gained quick renown at every watering hole for dousing the pain of loss with the gagging combination of gin-and-tonic and Budweiser. (And they gained disrepute among waitresses and bartenders as foul-mouthed lousy tippers.)
Big fights and sloppy drunks are old hat for Las Vegas. The newest new thing for this city that never rests, much less sleeps, are the mushrooming mixed-used developments on the Strip, such as Echelon, on the Stardust site, and CityCenter. The $7.8 billion CityCenter will blossom next year on 76 acres between the Bellagio and Monte Carlo, featuring striking residential towers by couture architects Helmut Jahn, Rafael Viñoly and Sir Norman Foster. The Pelli Clarke Pelli-designed casino is almost – but just almost – a footnote among all this Atlas-size ambition.
Gambling as an asterisk to the Vegas experience is difficult to imagine. So is Vegas without drinks accompanied by a hormonal backbeat. In less time than it took to become a dining capital, Las Vegas has erupted into a night-life mecca. That next evolution – casino-hotels to resort-casinos to residential-retail-casino megaplexes – finds response in the transforming club scene.
Whether with spine-vibrating discos or sleek, serene ultra-lounges, the city's night-life purveyors, multiproperty players such as the Light, Pure Management and N9NE groups, have made a science of the magic of music, cocktails and people. Lighting, sound, traffic flow, door control – all beggar the best efforts in Dallas.
Of course, it's a different league, buttressed by fresh-daily infusions of free-spending tourists, canny young locals used to the 24/7 lifestyle and proximity to Southern California and its 99th percentile of hotness.
Hollywood provides not only the looks, but also some of the money for these multimillion-dollar venues. Christina Aguilera and DJ AM (Adam Goldstein, the gentleman caller to second-tier starlets) have a piece of LAX. Celine Dion, Shaquille O'Neal and Andre Agassi are invested in Pure.
Las Vegas exists entirely and comfortably in the now. That's especially true of the night-life scene, as one high-profile club opening cascades after another. These are a few of the newer of the new, but only a few. The Bellagio just debuted the Bank. Planet Hollywood is fleshing out its lineup with Prive and the Living Room. The Luxor has introduced CatHouse. Mix is coming on strong at TheHotel at Mandalay Bay.
Jet at the Mirage
Designed by Jeffrey Beers, it's the diamond edge of the Mirage's rejuvenation. Three distinct atmospheres abide: main room, house and rock. The servers and bartenders are extraordinarily sexy in gents-club-meets-Barbarella livery. On a Monday service-industry night in December, the fast-moving line still stretched back to the lobby. Mountainous staffers wielding penlights as conductors do batons keep the choke points clear inside.
Contact: 702-792-7900; www.mirage.com.
Pure, Pussycat Dolls Lounge at Caesars Palace
A Frank Stella painting becomes a club at Pure in shades of white, off-white, cream and glints of silver, with a shock of ruby disjunction in its Red Room. The labyrinth of VIP spaces within VIP spaces proves irresistible to social strivers. The adjoining Pussycat Dolls Lounge stands in retro-erotic relief to all the cool modernism.
Contact: 702-731-7873; www.purethenightclub.com.
Tryst at Wynn Las Vegas
Though smaller than the others, at 12,000 square feet, Tryst is as ambitious and idiosyncratic as the Wynn itself. There's a palpable sense of moment just being here. Clipboard-holding, earpiece-wearing crowd wranglers manage the line to the grand staircase that wends down to the club, where a 90-foot waterfall provides spellbinding focus to the hip-shakers on the dance floor that extends from inside the club out to the manmade lagoon.
Contact: 702-770-3375; wynnlasvegas.com.
Tao lounge at the Venetian
Tao the nightclub, one of the hottest hangs for Hollywood do-badders, was shuttered when Mr. Dallas was in Las Vegas. The ground-floor lounge is no slouch as a drinking destination, however, softly lit and designed by Thomas Schoos like an opium eater's fever dream. A 20-foot-tall hand-carved Buddha presides over the 42,000-square-foot complex of restaurant, lounge and club. (Don't expect to hear anybody pronounce "Tao" properly, with a "D" sound.)
Contact: 702-388-8338; www.venetian.com.
Consider these, too
LAX and Noir Bar at the Luxor were dark the nights he was in town, but Mr. Dallas got an afternoon tour from one of the Pure Management Group publicists. Seeing a club vacant, stripped down to skin and bones, is a forensic exercise.
In LAX's case, that meant tremendous sightlines created by the 26,000-square-foot venue's multitiered opera-hall layout and a variety of VIP environments, from luxe cubbies and lofts to the super-exclusive celebrity Green Room.
Contact: 702-262-4529; www.laxthenightclub.com.
Adjacent to LAX, and about one-eighth the size, is Noir Bar, a dimly lit speakeasy draped in deep reds and black. The focus here is the latest iteration of Cocktail Nation: top-shelf liquors and fresh ingredients blended expertly. Order a sidecar, and they won't blink. Unusual for a Vegas nightspot, Noir is accessed through its own canopied entrance, on the Mandalay Bay side, without passing through hotel or casino.
Contact: 702-262-5257; www.luxor.com.
Mr. Dallas chronicles night life on the Web. He is not a positive role model. See guidelive.com or misterdallas.com.