Night Clubs Reviews

Jul 3, 1999 - Shakin' the Blues Away at Harvey's Tahoe

By Jack Neal

    Harvey's Hotel Casino is betting neither the Blues Brothers, rock 'n' roll, nor the blues themselves will ever die. Judging from the large and wildly enthusiastic crowd (6/22/99) that greeted every tune, gorgeous show girl and exuberantly accentuated dance step Harvey's new cabaret show offers in abundance, gambling on the box office success of "Tahoe Live's Rockin' Blues Revue" is one of Nevada's safer bets.

 Brian Poirier and Martin Benetar are the two personable entertainers who take on the personas of Jake and Elwood in Harvey's fast paced, much too loud, but not at all bad "Tahoe Live's Rockin' Blues Revue." In fact, the show picks up where Harvey's popular run of "Tap Girls" left off, for what looks like another hit run of a show that seems to have found the public's entertainment pulse, then pumps in the needed adrenalin that keeps most people begging for more.

The show opens with a video of its two stars creating good-natured havoc (in this revue, good old red-blooded American sexism is considered good natured) in the hotel portion of Harvey's and being busted by an astonishingly attractive female security person, who - later in an unfolding chain of events - shows up with five of her security-uniform-clad-show-girl cohorts to have some shakin'-the-blues away fun with Jake and Elwood. From that fairly standard Blues Brothers' opening, Poirier and Benetar cram in as many things a Blues Brothers' act can throw an audience's way in an 80 minute show. Poirier and Benetar are accompanied on their re-make of "Saturday Night's Live" Dan Aykroyd and the late John Belushi segments by six great-looking and great-dancing show girls, a super eight-piece band, Jackie Landrum, a top-notch soul singer, and comic Tom McGillan, whose comedy hits reasonably well on about six cylinders out of eight.

   Having come off Blues Brothers' stints for Legends in Concert and American Superstars, Poirier and Benetar are quite at home with their material. That their interpretations seemed more like winging-it, than being creatively with-it doesn't stop this black-suited duo from pleasing most in the audience as much as they obviously aim to please. Besides, Aykroyd and Belushi came off the same way - like they were showing off in a high school variety show.

 Tall, dark and slinky, songstress Jackie Landrum has more than enough soul in her presence to throb her way through several great songs made sensational by Aretha Franklin, who helped bolster "The Blues Brothers'" movie when it came out in the early '80s. It's Landrum's segments that are most damaged by an overly hyped sound system. It's Landrum's talent that could blow an audience away, if the show's volume didn't beat her to the punch.

Doing sizzling Catherine Eardley choreography, the show's six dancers are nothing less than dazzling doing the knock-out dance routines that so demandingly let the aerobics fly. The Rockin' Blues Revue band mixes high spirited send-ups of rock 'n blues conventions with pure musical abandon that takes off in all kinds of interesting directions. That devilish diversity makes this super-eight band as entertaining to watch, as it's fun - and enlightening - to hear.

 The show's costumes and set are by the multi-talented Dick Wells. The costumes are terrific and the tail ends of two fin-tailed cars set against a multi-mini-mirrored bandstand '50s fast-food drive-in. The dancers changed so often I lost track, but they never looked anything less than attractively and sexily dressed and perfectly groomed for the show's every occasion.

Harvey's "Rockin' Blues Revue" is a sharp in-the-loop show that should pack the club's Tahoe Live Cabaret indefinitely.

"Tahoe Live's Rockin' Blues Revue" is performed twice nightly Tuesday through Thursday and Saturday nights, with one performance only on Friday and Sunday nights. There are no Monday performances. For information call Harvey's Hotel Casino box office at 1 800 553 1022, extension 2883.