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Pussycat Dolls founder’s Matt Goss, Dirty Virgins ready for Palms
Robin Antin and Matt Goss at the premiere of The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard at Planet Hollywood.
Photo: Erik Kabik/Retna/www.erikkabikphoto.com
Pussycat Dolls creator and choreographer Robin Antin and her British pop singing star Matt Goss partner tonight for the premiere of their new show Matt Goss Live From Las Vegas, which they hope will bring back the glory days of old-time Las Vegas when the Rat Pack ruled supreme. Not only does Matt have the chiseled and handsome looks of a James Bond or Jason Statham character, he’s also got the lingerie-clad Dirty Virgins as the power weapon in their arsenal to seduce success.
They are the hottest new dance group created by Robin, and with Matt are backed up with two singers and a seven-piece band. Known as “The Voice,” Matt won international success as the lead singer of the 1980s British pop group Bros and sold more than 17 million records worldwide. He eventually moved to Los Angeles and began a successful songwriting career that included the main song for Fox’s hit So You Think You Can Dance and Keri Hilson and Akon’s duet hit “Change Me.”
The amazing mix all comes together Fridays and Saturdays starting tonight as the first real residency in George Maloof’s Palms. He’s even converted the former lounge into a brand new cabaret area now known as The Gossy Room.
Amid final rehearsals, Robin and Matt took a break to talk with me about the exciting project.
Said Robin: “The show has come together in a way that … today I was in tears. It is so unbelievable. It came together better than I expected. I went into this with all of my heart, hats on, gloves on and ready for anything. It is going to be awesome -- you are going to love it. We are looking at all the video content that is going on throughout the show, and it’s simply f*cking genius -- truly incredible.
Robin Antin and Matt Goss at the Dirty Virgins auditions at the Palms.
“It is a small room, but the show could easily live in a huge, massive concert space. We built a catwalk for the girls, and Matt the Voice is singing so well every day, you think he is going to lose it the way he is singing -- it’s perfection, it’s so insane. The sound from the band is great, out of this world. We have a huge band and a horn section … the bass, the guitars, the drums. We have four very hot dancers all from Vegas: Kela, Emily, Amber and Mokeese.
“They are in lingerie. I am not going to put them in bikinis or shorts. The sexiest thing to me is girls in lingerie. I see these as more like Bond girls, they are more James Bond style. Matt gives that vibe. The way the girls interact with him, you don’t think Pussycat Dolls because the show revolves around a guy. The dancers work their seductive moves all around him while he’s singing, and he’s onstage the entire show. The singers are Mecca and Angela, and they wear a 1960s style created very much for them as super sexy flight attendants on Gossy Air! They are beautiful, and people will love what they wear, which is something that no one has ever done before in a Vegas show.
“Matt does an unbelievable version of ‘Luck Be a Lady.’ It is strange. You hear it from outside, and people in the casino stop and say that sounds like Sinatra! But it is an edgier version. He is not trying to be anyone. He can just sing. Robin, do me a favor and be the first to write this! It is Matt Goss Live in Las Vegas at The Gossy Room. Not the lounge. We have transformed the lounge into The Gossy Room. Everyone keeps writing lounge, and he is not performing at the lounge. He is performing in his very own Gossy Room.”
Robin Antin, Matt Goss, Demi Moore and Anne Heche talk Twitter at the premiere of Spread in the Palms. Guess who doesn't tweet?
I asked Robin why she picked Matt for the project. He’d left Britain and literally went underground in California. Robin told me: “I met him a couple years ago. I started going down to the studio to see him record. I was interested in what I had heard. I am all about talent. It wasn’t the kind of thing where I went down there thinking, ‘Hmmm, what could I do with you?’ I went down there to listen … and after the first second I was down there, I was like, oh my god, you are unbelievable. He was in the booth singing, and I started going every day, and I watched him put together his album.
“And obviously I have so many connections in my world, I was like, ‘How are you not the biggest thing of all time?’ He was underground and didn’t want to do it unless he was going to go all in. He is so smart and business savvy. We started talking, and he has been there and done that. He is really smart with branding. We were on the same page. It became a very organic, natural thing, and we just were like, ‘We need to work together.’
“He has incredible style. I am really into fashion. We put our heads together. He has a great song called ‘Evil.’ I said we have to make a video. We funded the whole thing and brought in the director, styled it and choreographed it. It was us. We put it together, and no sooner did George and Michael Greco, the Palms entertainment director, see it than in seconds they said, ‘This is amazing -- let’s do the show.’ We said the room is great, but we had to transform it: paint it, redo it and tear up the carpet. We tailor made it for us and invested a lot of time, money and energy into this. We believe in it so much, and here we are on the eve of the premiere.
Matt Goss.
“I am so proud of it. It is a show that can live in Vegas for many, many years and reminds me of a time back in the day that my parents used to come see. They would come home and say we just saw Elvis and Frank Sinatra. This is incredible -- it’s like the Rat Pack vibe all over again. I look at Matt as the male Celine Dion. He will have women flipping out over him. He walks through the casino with that British Jason Statham look, like a James Bond creature, and women just follow him. Imagine what’s going to happen when he goes up onstage. Even the guys will look at him and respect him like they did with Sinatra! “
Matt jumped in: “I don’t know about that, but it is very nice that people have been saying all sorts of nice things. I don’t take all of that too seriously. But it’s possible this could be a steppingstone to something bigger in the future. I think you should always plan for the future, something bigger and better with everything you do, and everything I do I always make sure it is the best. This show has come to fruition, and the president of the casino has come down and gone, ‘Wow, we are going to need a bigger room.’ Everything from the imagery to the feel of the room is great, and hopefully we have created an experience where people are going to go for a real night out as opposed to flip-flops and jeans.
“I want it to be a sense of occasion again. We are from the same part of the world, and I like the edge of life. I still think there is something to be said about getting all dressed up and coming into a room full of cool people with the right energy and the right attitude and listening to phenomenal music and seeing a great show. My nerves are a lot more rested now as we reach opening night. We’ve got it all together, and it is starting to really feel like our home. I wouldn’t mind that Rat Pack era starting up all over again when guys were gems. It would be nice if there is someone in town that wants to jump up with the band and play. People are saying this is a fabulous room and could be the one place in town where you come and hang and have a good night out.”
I had to ask him with all the beauty around him how he avoids being distracted by the seductive Dirty Virgin dancers and the two sexy singers that Robin put together.
Soon-to-be Palms headliners Matt Goss and Robin Antin at the premiere of Spread in the Palms.
Said Matt: “I just let myself get sidetracked. I am not going to pretend I don’t notice it. The whole show is so sexy, but it is my professional family. I think the world of them. I really do love my job. There are beautiful women every night. I sing my heart out. It is a great place to be. If this increases from two nights a week to six nights a week, I’d welcome it. The way Vegas has treated me, I genuinely want this town to be a big part of my life. I love it here.
“I want the tourists and the people who live here to say we are going to be at The Goss Room on a Friday and Saturday night. However big the room gets, I want that energy to be there. If it gets bigger, great. We will have a bigger band and show. That is my dream. This town has treated me so well already. I feel very honored. In this country, there is a lot of humility that comes with starting a new venue. I have to make sure I deliver. I feel ready for the task, and if Las Vegas will take me, I would be honored to make this part of my home. I love it here. “
We’ll be there for tonight’s premiere and have the full report Tuesday when we return with our regular schedule of postings after the holiday weekend.
Meantime, the knockout Zowie Bowie duo, who moved out of the same Palms space, go head-to-head with Matt as they premiere their new run of song and big band music shows at the Monte Carlo, too. Chris Phillips and Marley Taylor be at the Pub on Fridays and Saturdays with a Top 40, rock and roll and disco concert, and then starting Sept. 13, their new big band Vintage Vegas show with a 15-piece orchestra starts its run in the Lance Burton Theater there.
Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.
Follow Robin Leach on Twitter HERE.
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Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter HERE.
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