Las Vegas Mixtape v38: Backstreet Thrills, A Grand Café, and Forever Blues

Track #3: Chris Isaak @The Pearl Theater

Elegantly blue, with a touch of red. (Image: Vegas 411)

“We’re not Taylor Swift quality…we are state fair quality,” joked Chris Isaak in front of a devoted audience at the Pearl Theater inside Palms Casino Resort. In a career-spanning performance by a certifiably great American artist, the “Forever Blue” Isaak left everyone spellbound with a slow-burning and aching “Wicked Game,” his 1989 signature hit and one of the show’s many highlights.

The Stockton, CA native’s voice remains warm, rich, and elegant; he’s gifted with seductive deep tones and a falsetto capable of melting anyone’s heart who hears it. Isaak’s skillful four-piece band didn’t so much play the songs—rooted in blues, classic pop, Americana, and country—as caress them.

Style—and substance. (Image: Vegas 411)

Dressed for most of the show in a black sparkling suit, the suave Isaak took everyone inside his lonely “Blue Hotel” and showed us the pain of missing a lover in “Western Stars,” a song that kd lang glowingly covered a few years after his 1985 original. Isaak also sang the Connie Francis 1959 hit “My Happiness” as a tribute to the iconic singer who died only two days earlier and who possessed “the voice of an angel,” he said. Let it be known that Chris Isaak is once and forever a class act.