A&E
Music
Concert Review: Purity Ring
Beauty Bar, April 11
April 15th, 2013
Making a Vegas stopover en route to Coachella, Canadian duo Purity Ring—singer Megan James and instrumentalist Corin Roddick—played to an eager full house, fans sardining their way toward the stage for a haunting, yet ethereal performance. Read more »
Music
Concert Review: How to Destroy Angels
The Pearl, April 13
April 15th, 2013
Effin’ amazing! While the recent Welcome Oblivion album from Trent Reznor’s latest musical endeavor, How To Destroy Angels, reflects his signature sound, I couldn’t help but wonder how the more down-tempo electronica style would translate to a live concert—it’s not exactly something you can mosh or dance to. But the group was already a step ahead, balancing out the astral musical offerings with artistic video-mapping visuals as they began the set with “The Wake-Up.” Read more »
Music
Concert Review: Rihanna
Mandalay Bay Events Center, April 12
April 15th, 2013
I’m quite fond of Rihanna when she’s on the red carpet. She’s bold. A good girl gone bad who oozes sex—both the kitten kind and the dirty kind. But that’s all from the neck down. I don’t always love her from the neck up, because she looks, well, mean. A couture dress is not often best paired with the icy, angry, standoffish gaze for which she has become known. Read more »
Music
Concert Review: Tegan and Sara
Boulevard Pool at the Cosmopolitan, April 10
April 15th, 2013
Hitting Las Vegas just two nights before a high-profile gig at Coachella, twin-sister act Tegan and Sara could have treated this show as a glorified tune-up. But they are far too sincere for that. Instead, they bared their hearts for 90 minutes to a crowd that absorbed every musically induced emotion and reciprocated in kind. Read more »
Music
Concert Review: New Order With Johnny Marr
Boulevard Pool At The Cosmopolitan, April 11
April 15th, 2013
Before their show at the Cosmo, New Order was one of the least engaging live bands I’d seen. I last saw them live in their heyday—late 1987, following the release of Substance—and with the exception of Pater Hook, who wore his bass low on his body and hunched over like a caveman to play it, I’ve never seen a sheer personality void so perfectly embodied onstage. I mean, keyboardist Gillian Gilbert ate a fucking sandwich in the middle of the set. Sure, New Order 1987 could make the notes, but that hardly matters when said notes are produced by reanimated corpses. Read more »
Movies
Robert Redford is Aging But Ageless
The actor must be growing older but it doesn’t seem that way in 'The Company You Keep'
April 12th, 2013
Some actors are lucky. In the third act of their careers, they become dream versions of their own parents, or grandparents. Robert Redford is a slightly different case. Read more »
Music
Opinion: Rihanna Needs to Respect Fans' Time
From Bieber to Snoop, top performers make fans wait for concerts
April 12th, 2013
It’s no shocker that as performers get wealthier, their ability to sympathize with the average person can wane. But when the gulf between artist and fan becomes so vast that fans feel they are being treated like dirt, the appeal of the experience fades. Fast. Read more »
Stage
Sunny Sinclair Perks Up Entertaining 'Pin Up'
April 9th, 2013
Start here: Claire Sinclair is a tasty, made-for-Vegas combo—a dish of rich cheesecake served with a slice of apple-pie exuberance. Read more »
Bookini
'Drunk Tank Pink' is a Red-Letter Read
April 9th, 2013
The title of Adam Alter’s Drunk Tank Pink comes from a late-’70s experiment that revealed “the miraculous tranquilizing power of bright pink.” Once researchers noted test subjects were significantly weaker after staring at a piece of pink cardboard, prisons started painting their holding cells pink. Public housing enjoyed less vandalism after a new coat of pink paint, and community buses installed pink seats. Read more »
