Shania Twain throws a big pop party with ‘Let’s Go!’ residency

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Denise Truscello

Shania Twain opens her new residency at Zappos Theater on December 6.

Mon, Dec 9, 2019 (2 a.m.)

Zappos Theater is the Las Vegas Strip’s headquarters for pop music favorites. Certainly this room at the Planet Hollywood resort is competing with the resident headliner lineups at Park Theater at Park MGM at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, but Live Nation’s curation of artists for Zappos showcases one element above all others — the ability to satisfy that artist’s fan following.

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Shania Twain at Zappos Theater on December 6.

Shania Twain drove that feeling home Friday night during opening night of her “Let’s Go!” residency at Zappos Theater, her second spin on the Strip after the wildly successful “Still the One” show at the Colosseum from 2012 to 2014. It wasn’t just her hit-filled set of pop country tracks spread out over her career. It was also about her interaction with the audience, a packed house she completely won over by her fourth song “Up!,” the title track from her smash 2002 album.  Once the crowd was up out of their seats, Twain concentrated on keeping them standing for the rest of the night, even through a stripped-down yet energetic acoustic mini-set at the front of the stage and especially during a segment that perched the star on a bar with a makeshift saloon backdrop. She sang her way through “Any Man of Mine” and “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?” while audience members were called onstage and dressed in skirts to join a group of male dancers for a “country can-can” routine.

Considering this was opening night, Twain seemed incredibly relaxed and comfortable on her new Vegas stage, casually dropping self-deprecating jokes and performing the ballad “Forever and For Always” with her yellow lab sitting beside her. Surely her Colosseum run prepared her for this show, but she also noted Friday that she’s spent a lot of time at Zappos Theater in the last five years watching all the room’s residents perform. “I’d have to say my favorite is definitely the Backstreet Boys. I love those guys,” she said before giving a nod to the fans taking over her favorite place to sit, a VIP section stage-left where “they just keep serving Champagne!”

The Backstreet Boys are another great example of an act that fits perfectly at Zappos Theater, a successful pop group from a specific era whose fans just happen to be the perfect age to travel to Vegas, re-live their younger days through music and enjoy the nostalgia. Twain’s new show has a bit of that effect for casual fans who can’t wait to see her perform her biggest hits like “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” “Come On Over” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman.” But this show is really about her more serious fans, the ones who really enjoy watching Twain enjoy herself and who want to hear songs like “Life’s About to Get Good” from her most recent album “Now” and “Honey, I’m Home” from way back in 1997.

Twain probably could have returned to the Colosseum with this new concert production but she’s clearly all about throwing a big musical party with her fans and that’s why Zappos Theater is the ideal Vegas venue. “Let’s Go!” continues at 8 p.m. December 11, 13, 14 and 18 at Planet Hollywood (3667 Las Vegas Blvd. South, 702-777-2782) and more info can be found at caesars.com.

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