Paula Abdul Concert Review, Las Vegas, NV, November 10, 2018
To say I love Paula Abdul would be an understatement. I finally met her last year and when the opportunity arose this year, I jumped on it!
Paula announced her Straight Up Paula tour a few months back and the most convenient show with a meet and greet was in Las Vegas, a place I had never been but seemed like as good of a place as any to go, especially with my frequent poker playing. What could go wrong? The answer to that is NOTHING. Nothing went wrong.
I bought the VIP meet and greet passes and invited my Sarah Kay to come along. I know her from Austin but she and her husband live in Vegas now. She’s a good friend and the perfect person to take to the show with me.
I arrived in Vegas Friday night around 10PM, got checked in and Sarah Kay and her husband Mark met me at the Hard Rock for some dinner and drinks and we just hung out for a bit. Then we went over to The Double Down. Cool punk bar but the cigarette smoke was horrible, so we left and they dropped me off at my hotel.
The following morning I started going around to some record stores but didn’t really find anything. Ended up meeting up with my San Antonio friend Gordon who was in town with his wife and they were doing some record shopping. Competition! haha. He didn’t find much on this trip either. Sarah and Mark picked me up and we went back to their place for a bit to chill before the show. We had to be at the meet and greet by 430 and the hotel/casino (Red Rock) was up near their condo. We then went to Red Rock, grabbed a quick meal and checked in with Paula’s on site VIP host. We got our swag bags and such and got with our group of ten folks. We all had the “Ultimate” passes so we got to watch soundcheck before getting to meet and talk with her. As they sat us down, Promise of a New Day kicked in and we were all just watching the stage and then out of the corner of my eye, there’s Paula standing right in front of us greeting everyone with her hand as she was singing. I was taken by surprise and almost lost it. haha. There she was. So pretty, perfect and oh so tiny. She then went to the stage and they ran through Crazy Cool. Immediately after we were lined up for the autograph and photo ops.
I purposely put myself at the end of the group of ten people. When it was my turn to meet her, I showed her my arm and it went something like this.
“We met in Austin last year.” She gave me a hug a huge smile and said, “oh my god, you really did get that tattooed!?” I asked if she’d add to it and she replied, “what should I write?” I told her to write whatever she wants and she went to work on my arm. “You’re awesome,” she said. She wrote, I’m Always & “Forever Your Girl”. Don’t mind the big guy who just died in front of her, that was me. I told her to call me when she gets to San Antonio and we could do dinner since there’s no meet and greet for that show. With her sly pirate smile she just said, “I’ll see what I can do.” Even though it’ll never happen, I’m glad she played along.
She was incredibly sweet and I’m still in awe of just being able to see her, say hello, have her remember me and to have gotten some sweet hugs! Immediately after, Sarah and I went to a tattoo shop to get the work done. We had 2+ hours until the show started. We got back with about 30 minutes to spare, grabbed a drink and went to our seats…front row center, of course. We were talking to the others in our row who were asking if I had gotten the tattoo and I showed them. Good fun all around. Then the lights went down…
There was a short overture video playing and she opened up with The Way that You Love Me then into Knocked Out. Throughout the set, which was similar to last year’s with a few additions, she changed costumes a lot, had some videos run while she talked about her history and such. Obviously she lip sync’d in the songs where she was dancing a lot (most of them), but some of the slower numbers she was singing. She can still move incredibly well and obviously trusts her dancers as they were throwing her around and she even close the show jumping off of a ladder into their arms.
Suffice to say she looked incredibly gorgeous up there and a couple of times she made eye contact with me and gave a little smile. Dead again! haha. It was a fun show all around. Afterwards we bounced down to the casino area. I wanted to get into a poker game and Sarah had her husband and his brother on the way. I jumped into a cash game for a $200 buy-in and an hour or so later I walked away with about $430. Not too shabby. It was the night of the queens for me…Paula and the queens that kept me winning hands at the poker table! My first and last hands at the table were pocket queens. It all seemed like it was meant to be. We played some keno after and Mark was hitting pretty well and knew when to walk away. We went back to their condo and I got a ride back to my hotel from there. I was pretty wiped out. I grabbed a slice of pizza at the hotel and went to my room. Elated and worn out all the same.
The next morning I got up after getting some good sleep, packed, showered and checked out. Still had some time to kill so I got on the video roulette machine, dropped in $100 and walked away with $205. In Vegas, I am a winner. Everywhere else, not so much. haha
I’m still undecided on the San Antonio show. We’ll see.
Already looking forward to another tour!
The Metal Files 
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