Travel

Ready for the DJ wars

Las Vegas is buzzing about the seemingly unlimited money behind the forthcoming Hakkasan ultra-super-mega club/restaurant at the MGM Grand and the resurrection of the Light brand as a Mandalay Bay club colossus. The DJ wars are reaching a level of perhaps ridiculously unsustainable proportions when a dude with a mouse head can show up for a day and get close to $1 million in cash and perks just to play music during the afternoon and then again at night.

But look, these new clubs are really going to have to be something special to take the already world-class Vegas nightlife experience to another level. On Friday, we went to Steve Wynn’s XS club for Dirty South’s residency debut and ran into a who’s who of nightlife and restaurant aces, true shot-callers in New York, LA, Vegas, Miami and beyond who run everything from pioneering theatrical clubs to hot spots serving North America’s most famous spaghetti pomodoro. And when Dirty South took the stage, the sardine-can-jammed fans just below the stage erupted, dancing and hugging and smiling like they were in the best place in the world at that moment, at the center of a club that still feels huge every time you walk in.

After we left, we checked in on Marquee at the Cosmopolitan. Benny Benassi was DJing, and every table near the booth was so jammed that checking the time on your watch involved bumping into multiple new friends. But why did it matter what time it was anyway? The music and the light show took the crowd up and down and up up up again so many times, like a roller coaster that kept climbing higher.

Two clubs that invented this game, two clubs in no danger of becoming irrelevant no matter how much cash anybody else has, two clubs that know that selling tickets is just as valid of a way to fill the coffers as bottle service nowadays. Beautiful people everywhere. City of dreams indeed.