No flux capacitor, no long stretch of open road and no gunning the DeLorean to 88 mph. You don’t need a time machine, a la Back to the Future, to travel to the past. Whether it was big hair or big bell-bottoms, “Motownphilly” or Hitsville USA itself, some of the most memorable decades are brought back to life on the Strip each night.
For the baby boomer generation there’s a slew of shows that’ll trigger memories of adolescence, the growing pains of those teenage years and the transition into adulthood. For what has been labeled a simpler time in our culture, the 1950s come alive in Million Dollar Quartet at Harrah’s. Based on one fortuitous December evening at Sun Studio, the show tells the story of what happened when four rock ’n’ roll pioneers—Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis—jammed together. Played live, with no lip-synching, the sounds of the ’50s fill the theater with songs like “Blue Suede Shoes,” “I Walk the Line,” “Great Balls of Fire” and “Hound Dog.”
The Rat Pack is Back
With nicknames like the Swinging Sixties and the Decade of Peace and Love, it’s no surprise that, musically, the 1960s rocked. While you won’t find any Jimi, Janis or Jim on the Strip, there are plenty of shows to pluck you from the present and bring you right back to the decade. The coolest cats were actually named rats—The Rat Pack ruled the Hollywood roost (and Vegas, for that matter), and their music and those impromptu Sin City shows are alive again when Frank, Sammy, Dean and Joey impersonators take the stage at Rio in The Rat Pack is Back.
The ’60s nostalgia continues with Jersey Boys at Paris. The Broadway musical tells the tale of American blue-collar vocal group The Four Seasons and their rise to stardom. The culture of the decade is at the forefront of the show—dress, language, set design—and also the music, with hits like “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Sherry” and “Walk Like a Man.”
A musical hallmark of the 1960s is Motown. Memories associated with that genre will come flooding back when four white Australian singers known as Human Nature bring back the Motown sound in their show at The Venetian. Hits by The Supremes, Four Tops, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder have audiences out of their seats and dancing by the time the curtain closes.
In The Australian Bee Gees Show: A Tribute to the Bee Gees at Excalibur the curtain lifts on the decade of disco, divas and “Dyn-o-mite!” The Brothers Gibb—who had people all across the land working out their hustle in front of the mirror while “Night Fever” played in the background—arguably dominated the late ’70s. The tribute show manages to squeeze in all the hit songs, mannerisms and magic of the original group.
Rock of Ages
On the opposite end of the Strip at The Venetian, it’s an all-out ’80s rock ’n’ roll fest. In Rock of Ages, the hair-band hits are all here, from “Here I Go Again” and “We Built This City” to “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” “Sister Christian” and “Can’t Fight This Feeling.” The leather, lace, spandex, crimped hair, acid-washed jeans and animal prints scream from the show, set on the Sunset Strip during the height of the decade of decadence.
For those Gen X-ers out there, it was near impossible to not have a memory soundtracked by one of the biggest R&B groups of all time, Boyz II Men. Although no longer a quartet, Shawn Stockman, Wanya Morris and Nathan Morris can still hold it down at The Mirage. Whether belting out “End of the Road” or “Water Runs Dry,” the ’90s superstars definitely bring the “Motownphilly” back again.
Although she came on the scene toward the end of the ’90s, it wasn’t until the ’00s that Britney Spears hit her stride and claimed her crown as pop music’s princess. Her show, Piece of Me, at Planet Hollywood Resort is a flashback through the blond bombshell’s biggest hits—taking the millennials in the audience right back to the decade that kicked off the culture’s over-the-top obsession with the private lives of pop stars and celebrities. Gosh, maybe the ’50s really were a simpler time.
