Vocalist Michael Monge is shown with music director and pianist Jamie Grant during a performance at Eastside Lounge on Monday, Aug. 4, 2014, at Encore.
Michael Monge has done all he can to become one with the Las Vegas entertainment community.
He’s been to Kelly Clinton’s open-mic night at Bootlegger Bistro. He’s been spotted at Cabaret Jazz in the Smith Center for the Performing Arts. He’s hung with Frankie Scinta at The D Las Vegas and even ducked into Tap House on West Charleston for that tavern’s Monday night musical hodgepodge.
Happily, Monge is going to be sticking around for a while. The vocalist of such classics as “Fly Me to the Moon,” “My Girl,” “Save the Last Dance,” “Quando, Quando, Quando” and “What Kind of Fool Am I,” among dozens of easily recognizable tunes, has been extended at Eastside Lounge in Encore. The announcement has been delivered this week and is met with resort owner Steve Wynn’s approval.
Wynn even suggested cutting back Monge’s schedule from six nights to five.
“Now that we’re going forward with a full year, he wants to preserve my voice,” Monge said in a phone interview today. “He understands the challenges of singing in Las Vegas.”
Backed by a crisp three-piece band directed by pianist Jamie Grant, Monge performs Wednesdays through Sundays from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. This is not a traditional two-drink-minimum lounge experience; Monge’s performances require a $10 cover and a one-drink minimum. Nonetheless, the crowds have descended on the lounge since Monge started. The shows have helped bring a crowd into that formerly anonymous and overlooked lounge space.
Monge says the result is “like living a dream.” His arrival to Las Vegas is a story of great aptitude and timing. In February, he was singing at Bice Italian restaurant and lounge in Boca Raton, Fla. Wynn happened to be in the audience that night and noted the vocal and even physical similarities between Monge and Wynn’s old friend Frank Sinatra.
The two talked after Monge’s set, and Monge asked — somewhat sheepishly — if Wynn might know someone in Las Vegas who could hire him as a singer.
And now Monge is that singer, booked at Encore through the end of next year.
“I’m concentrating now on keeping the show fresh, learning new songs, adding new songs,” Monge says. “For me, every day is a different day, and every show is a different show.”
