Jubilee!

It’s been a sunny week here in Las Vegas. It was warmer than last week but we aren’t up into springtime yet. Morning temperatures are around freezing but late afternoon it gets up near 20c (70f). Rain is scheduled for this coming weekend, with colder temps as well. We’ve cleaned up our raised bed garden area and are ready for plantings, but there is still a chance of frost for another few weeks so the tomatoes will not go in for a few weeks. I’m not big on cold weather veggies, so the garden sits dormant after the last tomatoes are picked in late December. There is basil out there, which we use for cooking, and that doesn’t freeze back so we have fresh all year round. I also use a lot of rosemary, and the 30 meter strip (100’) of plants along the low wall provide much more than we would ever use.

Saturday night we went to see Jubilee! over at Bally’s. It’s the last big old style performance show left in Vegas, informally called a ‘feather’ show due to the nature of the costumes. We hit the Follies before that one closed at the Tropicana, and wanted to make sure we caught this one. It still seems to be going well, but who knows any more.

There are two shows nightly, a general audience show at 7:30 and a topless version at 10:30. Being locals that don’t stay up late we hit the early show, but it was rather easy to see the modifications made for the late show – about half the girls wear thin semi transparent tops that are probably removed. This would result in forty bare breasts bouncing around the stage, I am sure it would be a magnificent sight.
Besides the dozens of showgirls there were a dozen or so men dancing and singing. During one bit most of them came on stage in rather skimpy g-strings. From a quick appraisal it is very evident that most of the girls hit the gym a lot more than the guys do, but there were quite a few impressive male bodies as well.
It does look like a show that has been around a while – more like the Ed Sullivan variety show than the new Cirque du Soleil acrobats. It employs quite a lot of singers and dancers – at a few points there were sixty or so people on stage. The elaborate costumes must keep quite a few creators and repair people employed, as we saw some feathers flying from where we sat, it must require constant maintenance and replacement. But for an hour and a half we were continuously entertained, with numerous costume and set changes, stairs coming and going, switches from a couple singing to huge crowds tap dancing to those big feathered headdresses that must be quite an effort to wear.

This is a nice alternative to the impressive Cirque spectaculars, and something I would recommend for those of you looking for something old fashioned.