2015 Rock in Rio USA Day 4 featured Bruno Mars, John Legend, pictured here, Empire of the Sun, Joss Stone and more Saturday, May 16, 2015, at MGM Resorts Festival Grounds.
For a night, the embodiment of Elvis and The Rat Pack on the Strip was the guy in the white fedora and Hawaiian-print shirt. He spun and shimmied and smiled and stopped to notice his face on a billboard overlooking Las Vegas Boulevard.
“That’s us!” he shouted, prompting thousands of festivalgoers to turn their heads from the stage. “On the billboard! Right there!”
For a night, it was Viva Mars Vegas, as the most electrifying live act in today’s pop-music culture brought Rock in Rio USA to an apt finish. Mars said, “We’ve been layin’ low, but they said, ‘You wanna play Rock in Rio in Vegas? And I said, Hell, yeah!.”
Buoyed by his raging backing band, The Hooligans, Mars opened not with a song but a drum solo, leading to “Locked Out of Heaven” and “Treasure.”
By then, the crowd was singing and dancing along with the 29-year-old singer/songwriter and festival favorite.
By now, these songs are readily recognizable, as Mars has grown into the rare music-industry (whatever that is, today) superstar who is concurrently experiencing his creative, critical and commercial peaks.
Taylor Swift, who closed Friday’s opening night of Pop Weekend, and he were among the Main Stage closing acts who are in their commercial and performing primes, even as No Doubt and Metallica were each wildly entertaining.
For the weekend, the attendance figures for the first Rock in Rio Pop Weekend were 90,000, but that number seems higher than what the festival really drew, which is likely about 65,000. Las Vegas Metro Police issued an official figure of 29,715 for Saturday night (nothing yet for Friday), and the count for Friday was closer to 35,000.
The final night was highlighted by performances on the Main Stage by Big Sean, Empire of the Sun, John Legend and, finally, Mars. Observing all of those varied styles in a single festival is a jarring experience.
Sean stormed the stage, stripping his shirt and strutting through his set. Empire of the Sun opted for their requisite, elaborate costuming (guitarist Luke Steele sporting a wig that rose two feet off his head), while Legend smoothly recited Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On” and his own, wonderful “All of Me” from the piano.
Across the expanse on the Mercedes-Benz Evolution Stage, Magic!, the funk-reggae act out of Toronto, charged through “Message in a Bottle” in their high-energy appearance.
Joss Stone, who has appeared in a few Rock in Rio festivals, was the final act on that stage and closed with “I Put a Spell on You” from Creedence Clearwater Revival and “Some Kind of Wonderful” from Grand Funk Railroad.
She opened with her Grammy-nominated “You Had Me,” her powerhouse voice and backing band in full competition with the sound spilling from the EDC stage across the grounds.
But by the end of the evening, there was no vying for attention at the Main Stage. Mars, a former headliner at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas who also has played Pearl at the Palms and MGM Grand Garden Arena, is a great fit for the city and owns that elusive Las Vegas strut.
It helps that he performs a great impression of Elvis dating to days as a child (he performed that role at age 5 in “Honeymoon in Vegas”) and has a charisma you can feel even deep in a festival crowd.
He didn’t bother summoning Elvis, though. But R. Kelly’s “Ignition” was in the set, and the women in the crowd were especially responsive to that number. As pyro blasted on both sides of the stage, the medley of “Money” and “Billionaire” were slammed together, lest we forget Bruno likes to be paid for all this work.
He announced that “Just the Way You Are” would close the night, but of course it did not. “Are you ready to take this party uptown?” he called out when returning to the stage.
That summoned “Uptown Funk,” his No. 1 hit with Mark Ronson, and even those who were not so funky by nature were feeling the groove. His sendoff was the muscular love song “Gorilla” and, like the greats, left the crowd wanting more.
There will be more, but not for a while. Rock in Rio is off to its home city in September and returns to Las Vegas in 2017, and, hopefully, Bruno will be, too. As we say around here, he can jump the line — any time.
Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.
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