Righteous show in Las Vegas

My girlfriend and I just saw the Righteous Brothers perform at Harrah’s Casino Showroom in Las Vegas. I am guessing that, depending on your age, there are two possible reactions to that statement. First, really, I didn’t know they were still alive. How was the show? Second, who are the Righteous Brothers? The latter was the reaction of my girlfriend’s Millennial hairdresser.

Granted, the Righteous Brothers do go back a way. They were big between 1962 and 1971. Their hits include You’ve lost that lovin’ feeling, Ebb Tide and Time of my life. If you weren’t around in the 1960’s you might have run across a couple of those songs in the films Dirty Dancing and Top Gun.

The duo were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.

I have included videos from two of the films with their songs.

Now that you are more familiar with their music, I need to clarify. The Righteous Brothers are currently made up of Bill Medley and Bucky Heard. Bobby Hatfield performed in the duo initially, but he died in 2003. Medley recreated and revived the duo in 2016.

Not surprisingly, the audience was comprised mainly of folks I would consider to be my contemporaries. That is, in their 70’s. Judging from their applause and reactions to the show, they also loved it.

Medley who just turned 78 looked great for his age and his voice appears to have stood the test of time.

They were backed up by an awesome group of musicians comprised of four horns, three girl singers, a keyboardist, bass guitarist and one kick-ass drummer. I specify one drummer because Las Vegas acts rely heavily on percussion. Donny and Marie have two drummers in their show and Elton John has three.

We enjoyed the show very much. They performed all the big Righteous Brothers hits along with some really good ‘extras.’ If you are familiar with the term blue-eyed soul, you understand what we were listening to.

Bill’s daughter, McKenna Medley sings with the group and has just released an album – Vinyl Re-imagined – which includes such hits as Help, Bye Bye Love and other classics rendered in a fresh way.

Tony