A Match Made in Vegas : Music Meets Money at the Irreverent Hard Rock Hotel

The Sex Pistols haven’t historically been too often invoked in the land of Wayne Newton and Tom Jones. And so the new Hard Rock Hotel and Casino immediately announces itself as a different kind of place, a gambling joint that’s not too proud for a little self-reflective irony, by prominently positioning a quote from Johnny Rotten over the inside front doors, in ransom note-like letters: “The only notes that matter,” reads the cheeky inscription, “come in wads.”

Kind of makes a guest stop to wonder: How would the artist formerly known as Rotten--now John Lydon--feel about his swindler’s sarcasm forming the cynical arc over the entrance to this new shrine to intertwined music and Mammon?

Funny you should ask that, because coincidentally enough, here comes the ex-Pistol himself past the paparazzi right now, arriving unfashionably early to get a good seat for the Hard Rock’s star-studded Friday night grand-opening party.

“Splendid!” is how he feels about it, thank you very much, when we catch up with Lydon. “It’s about time rock ‘n’ roll has admitted what it is--Las Vegas! I think it’s the first time rock ‘n’ roll has really been honest about itself . . . about being grotesque. We’re not stupid. We know that about ourselves. We are a part of the process after all. We are but human.

“Pearl Jam and Nirvana couldn’t exist without this,” claims Lydon, meaning the business of show. “It’s all part and parcel. When we pretend to be shy is when we fail to make good rock ‘n’ roll. It’s juvenile--and what the hell’s wrong with that? . . . And someone else makes the money. Oh well. At least now I can see where it’s going!”

The cash flow is indeed visible all around the Hard Rock Hotel, where lucre and lyricism meet for an unapologetic tryst. Therein you’ll find roulette tables shaped like pianos, and gift-shop counters in the form of massive Fender Stratocasters, and gambling chips named after popular songs about luck and money. Slot machines with pull-down handles designed to look like guitar necks are arranged in circles around risers that sport museum-like artifacts such as Elton John’s piano or the Stone Temple Pilots’ drum kit.

During this opening weekend, rank-and-file tourists stood outside in the drizzle in a line hundreds long just to get inside the casino, many of them then promptly getting in another long queue just to be granted admittance into the gift shop. A bonus was catching the occasional glimpse from behind ropes of the dozens of visiting celebrities who’d come to party and attend in-house concerts featuring the Eagles, Sheryl Crow, Al Green, Duran Duran and Weezer.

One such star rubbing elbows with the imported A-list likes of Jack Nicholson, Kevin Costner and, of course, Lydon was Tim Allen, who said the lure drawing him here was the chance to finally see his pal Don Henley’s band live for the first time. Hanging out in the back of the hotel’s 1,250-seat club, the Joint, waiting for the Eagles’ set to begin Saturday night, Allen admitted he didn’t know quite what to make of this new addition to a town he knows fairly well.

“I played Las Vegas for five years in the casinos, the big time,” said the “Home Improvement” star. “This is very different. Rock ‘n’ roll, gambling, rock ‘n’ roll, gambling”--he stuck out his hands, as if weighing the two--”doesn’t it seem like oil and water? Then again, certain types of oil go together very well with water. I would think not, but then look around this room; this is our generation. It’s very . . . interesting.

“But it seems very odd. You see Jim Morrison’s scribbled lyrics for ‘The Changeling’ on a wall--and then blackjack,” pointed out Allen, still not quite reconciling it all. “It’s a very gutsy call.”

Making that call is Peter Morton, the well-known entrepreneur behind this new $98-million casino and the chain of like-named, museum-like rock restaurants that came before it. If you notice a kind of winking self-consciousness in the countless tongue-in-cheek inscriptions like Lydon’s that have been built into the decor--or in the fact that Pink Floyd’s sarcastic “Money” might pop up on the omnipresent sound system, its clinking-coins sound effects blending with the real thing in the casino--it’s all part of the plan.

“Since I opened the first Hard Rock Cafe in London (in 1971), we’ve tried to inject a certain irreverence into the Hard Rock Cafes, and now into the Hard Rock Hotel,” said Morton, a sharp man of few public words who, from his sober facade, wouldn’t seem to have an irreverent bone in his body.

And irreverence, of course, means post-counterculturalists, folks who won’t scream when they wake up in the middle of the night and see a print of Bob Dylan staring down at them from over the bed.

Virtually every major development in Las Vegas in the last decade or longer has been overtly aimed at the burgeoning family trade, namely the theme park-style attractions of the Luxor, the MGM Grand and Treasure Island. Morton claims that the Hard Rock--located in relative isolation a few blocks off the Strip--is likewise aimed at families, too. Asked if the Hard Rock might contribute to a revival of the singles trade in Vegas, he’s quick to mention how Duran Duran bassist John Taylor just told him how glad he was he brought the wife and kids along.

But the fact is that Morton’s hotel may hold especial appeal for unattached Brat Packers who fancy themselves reincarnated Rat Packers, eager to indulge fantasies of an old-fashioned Sin City not overrun with schoolchildren, albeit in a very new-fashioned setting.

The modest-sized 340-room hotel is an odd mixture of cleverness, class and kitsch in its best and worst forms. As an unofficial music museum, any place that erects a glass altar around a tattered jacket once worn by a member of White Zombie is not exactly ready to rival the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a house of repute. On the other hand, there’s a kick to seeing James Brown’s childhood shoeshine stand enshrined as a museum piece.

As for the furnishings themselves, weekend guests voiced strong approval of the surprisingly understated hallways (featuring real Zildjian cymbals as lampshades) and rooms, not to mention the good vibes of the beachy swimming lagoon (with amplified music underwater, in case you just can’t miss that last stanza while you snorkel). Many music-bizzers indicated this was a place they might return to upon future Vegas visits, even despite the threat of rubes supplanting their bi-coastal friends come Monday.

Perhaps exemplifying what seemed to be a widely felt tension between mocking and embracing the surroundings, Sheryl Crow couldn’t help but tweak the city image a bit during her Friday night set, which was being taped for MTV airing.

“I feel sorta Vegas,” she announced to the assembled, emerging in a striking silver leather suit (looking like Bono’s Macphisto, but with pigtails instead of horns) while singing, naturally, “Leaving Las Vegas,” which the city itself seems to have shamelessly adopted as an anthem.

After her show, Crow explained she wore the garish duds as a way “to take the piss out of” the affair, which she’d agreed to do as a favor well before what became her Grammy media glut. The silver suit will “end up in the Hard Rock somewhere--as a tax write-off,” she laughed, not conjecturing too wildly.

The following night, a dressed-down Crow opened for the severely casual Eagles, and with this balmy soundtrack as influence everyone began to marvel at how quintessentially Californian the whole place was feeling. Except that at the Hard Rock Hotel, of course, you can check out any time you like and you can leave.