Tom Jones, live in Las Vegas

A Trip That Started With a Newspaper Advert

I was staying with a friend in Anaheim when I spotted a small advert in a Los Angeles newspaper. It was one of those too-good-to-be-true offers that only existed in the early nineties: two nights at the brand-new Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas for fifty-four dollars per person, with a ticket to see Tom Jones included. The Luxor had only opened the previous autumn, and the advert made a big deal of the pyramid, the Nile River ride, and the King Tut museum. It felt like the future had arrived in the desert, and the price was so low that I booked it immediately.

Arriving at the New Pyramid on the Strip

The Luxor still had that new-building smell when I arrived. Everything felt fresh, polished, and slightly surreal. The inclinators glided diagonally up the inside of the pyramid, the atrium was vast and echoing, and the whole place had a sense of being part hotel, part theme park. My room was high up in the pyramid with slanted windows and a view that made the Strip look like a toy city laid out below me.

I cant remember why but i was a bit late getting ready to go down to see the show and didnt have time for a shave and went down in a pair of jeans and a Welsh rugby shirt.

The Giza Showroom

The Tom Jones show was held in a smaller venue inside the Luxor, a cabaret-style room called the Giza Showroom. It wasn’t a theatre with rows of seats; it was more like a nightclub, with round tables, low lighting, and servers weaving between the chairs with drinks. The stage was only a couple of feet high, close enough that you could see every expression and every grin.

It was intimate, warm, and buzzing with energy. You could feel the excitement in the room long before the show started. I was a bit unsure if the bouncers on the door would even let me in when I arrived because everybody else was dressed up, the men in Tuxedos and the women in beautiful ball gowns.

They did let me in and I was sat at an oval table facing the stage. I was sat between two beautifully dressed ladies and the waitress informed me that my ticket incleded two free cocktails as well and asked me what I would like. I ordered the cocktails and a short time later was chatting to the two ladies. Feeling that I would never see the people around me again I spun a tall story to them all.

All around the stage there were lazer dragons flying around and the three featehrs emblem appeared over the stage. The two women noticed the emblem and saw that it was on my Welsh rugby shirt and asked what it was. I told them that it was the Welsh emblem of the three feathers and explained that the dragon was also a Welsh emblem. I then began my tall story. I told them that I was from Wales and that I was a good friend of Tom Jones and had just come to Las Vegas to see him perform. The two ladies lapped it up and got their jusbands to buy their new friend Alan more drinks. It was obvious that the men didnt believe a word I was saying but they bought me drinks anyway. There doubts about me soon vanished. 

Tom Jones, Up Close

When Tom Jones walked out, the whole room lifted. There were no giant screens, no arena distance, just him, the band, and a few hundred people packed around small tables. He worked the room like only he could, moving from song to song with that unmistakable voice filling the space. It’s Not Unusual, Delilah, What’s New Pussycat, all the classics, all delivered with the kind of presence that makes you forget how small the room actually was.

It felt less like a concert and more like being invited into a private performance. One of those nights where you know, even as it’s happening, that you’ll remember it for years. After a few songs, Tom stopped singing and started speaking to the audience and telling them about his home in Wales. Then came the moment I will never forget and the moment the men at the table all looked at me completley differentley.

Tom announced to everyone that a very good friend of his from Wales had  flown over to see him. He raised a pint in his hands, toasted his good friend and said he would see them later. At the same time a spotlight behind the stage came on and shone directly on me. The waitress approached me with two pints of beer and gave them two me and told me Tom would see me after the show. He then returned to singing and I spent the rest of the night thouroughly enjoying the show while the ladies and the once unconvinced men, now believed I was a good friend of Tom Joens and bought my drinks for the rest of the evening.

Walking Back Through the Pyramid

After the show, I stepped back into the huge atrium. The Sky Beam was shooting out of the top of the pyramid into the night, the boats were still drifting along the indoor river, and the whole place felt alive in a way only Las Vegas can manage. It was a strange mix of ancient Egypt, futuristic architecture, and pure nineties casino energy.

Looking back, it was the perfect time to visit the Luxor. The hotel was new, the prices were unbelievably cheap, and the entertainment felt personal in a way that doesn’t really exist on the Strip anymore. Seeing Tom Jones in that small room, during the Luxor’s first summer, and Toms kindness in buying me a beer is still one of my favourite Las Vegas memories.

I did meet Tom again a few years later at another concert in London, but that is a tale for another story.