Shiny Happy People

Craig McMurdo and his Dance Orchestra – I checked it on the web, it’s definitely not his Jazz Quartet or Big Band – are giving it laldy on the stage at the Vegas 12th anniversary stooshie, in Ocean Terminal. It is not yet 10pm and Mister McMurdo has already played a fine scything (air) guitar, cart wheeled across the stage, and described a perfect pirouette, he is a human windmill of activity and his rich, sonorous voice only adds to the feeling of being in (Las) Vegas. (Without the flying and the prohibitive costs) We have the added bonus that in our parallel Vegas, Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Junior and Elvis are still alive courtesy of the bold McMurdo’s outrageous gift for mimicry and downright cool crooning. His backing singers back sing beautifully, the brass section parps and burps, the boffin behind the keyboard swirls cloaks of melody, whilst swotting up on difficult sums. Roulette wheels clack and rattle in the casino, where punters win thousands of ‘Elvis’ dollars and find they are worth, oh, nothing. Which is to miss the point, a Vegas club night is all about inhabiting the moment. A chance to be anything other than what you are, a chance to love some one the way you love someone you no longer love. The website says that people fall in love at Vegas Which I believe. It also says that many of them get married. Which I regret. Showgirls preen and blossom in the candlewick blue light. Acts come and go on the polka dot stage, somehow, nothing disappoints. As 12th anniversaries go… it went. In a cloud of dry ice, body heat and magenta dust particles. Perfectly choreographed by all concerned, Vegas is the paradigm for all good clubs, in that it realises it is all about you…and me.

Billy is the author of 66 articles including 'Editor at Large' from November's Leither

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