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May 29, 1998
the hard rock
Well, this was supposed to be the big night for me and the boys in the band. This after-party, put together by Barbara Sinatra, widow of Ol' Blue Eyes himself, was supposed to be a big celebrity get together, a charity event, and ended up proving to be just that. It was your typical celebrity event in a town that was known for its famous citizens. We were originally told that Tony Bennett would perform BEFORE us, and I was personally worried that Tony and his orchestra (or big band) would simply blow us off the stage and back to San Diego. Well, for days now I have been mentally preparing myself for this event, practicing hard almost every day for 5 hours each day. I had been spending a lot of time on the Web lately, but had tapered computer-use considerably in order to prepare for this event. My own strategy in my mind was that if Tony Bennett and crew were just getting together (as I was told) for a jam session, then it meant that the atmosphere would be a little loose, so that when WE went on, there would be a bit of a chance to look halfway decent (I thought). We departed San Diego at about 10:55am and arrived in Las Vegas at about 11:50am. From the airport we took a shuttle to my parents' timeshare condo, where we were going to stay for the duration of our brief stay. By 2pm, we had checked in, got some lunch from a local restaurant and rested a bit before we were to go off again for our rendezvous with the other band members at 5pm. By sixish, we were eating dinner and watching the multitude of people, some of which I assumed were celebrities or well-to-do folk. However, I did recognize some famous people, notably: Wayne Newton, Alan Arkin, Robert Stack, Hal Linden, Jerry Vale, Bruce Jenner. I recognized two actors that I unfortunately forgot their names. Well, once the show started at 7pm, performing on stage was Sinatra's pianist, Frankie Randall, who led his 20 piece big band through a lot of Sinatra's classic songs. He did a great tribute to Frank Sinatra, sounding very much like Frank. Hal Linden, star of the old Barnie Miller TV sitcom got up on stage and surprised everyone by playing a mean clarinet. After Hal Linden, Jerry Vale got up to sing a few songs, his voice a little hoarse sounding, probably due to years of performing. The big band that backed up Frankie Randall consisted of some top-notch players, one of which we were told has performed with the Maynard Ferguson big band. These guys were definitely all great players, and it worried me somewhat that we would have to follow them. Now Tony Bennett never did show up, and we were told later that Mr. Bennett and Celine Dion were going to show up tomorrow for the next evening of festivities.
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