Fall is generally when the region’s casinos downshift on their headliner-entertainment offerings after the summer season. And while there are no current super-duper-stars on the performance menu, there is a nice variety of noteworthy entertainers heading our way as the 2024 calendar sheds its remaining pages. Below is a look at some of them. Please note that, except where noted, tickets to the shows listed herein are available at ticketmaster.com.
Kountry Wayne: Oct. 4, Live! Casino Hotel Philadelphia
In just a few years, The Georgia-born funnyman (real name: DeWayne Colley) has established himself as a multi-media star with his popular social-media content; TV role (Apple+’s “Time Bandits”); a Netflix special, a starring movie role (“Strange Love”); a memoir (“Help Is on the Way: Stay Up and Live Your Truth”) and standup performances. Tickets: axs.com.
John Mulaney: Oct. 11, Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa
On his previous solo AyCee visit to Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City in June 2022 (he played there last year with Pete Davidson and Jon Stewart), the popular funnyman conjured an entire performance based exclusively on the sometimes harrowing tale of his drug addiction and recovery from same. It will be interesting to see how he follows such an intensely personal presentation.
Diana Ross: Oct. 19, Hard Rock
Do we even need to articulate the reasons this is a must-see? If so, here are three: Ross is inarguably one of pop music’s most important artists of the past 60 years, her previous local turn at Ocean Casino Resort in September 2022 was an absolute stunner and at age 80, there’s no telling whether she’ll return to town.
Duran Duran: Oct. 26, Borgata
The British unit was a major contributor to the soundtrack of the early 1980s with such MTV-propelled hits as “Rio,” “Hungry Like the Wolf” and “Girls on Film,” and they have been enjoying a renaissance of sorts the past few years.
Johnny Mathis: Caesars Atlantic City, Oct. 28
Of course, Ross is a kid compared to the incomparable velvet-voiced crooner whose introduction to the world came in 1957, meaning he has performed in eight different decades! Like Ross, Mathis will soon be 89; he’s a national treasure who shouldn’t be missed.
Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue: Nov. 15, Borgata
Trombone Shorty (real name: Troy Andrews) is a millennial native of New Orleans who has gained commercial success and critical acclaimed by throwing into his musical blender everything from rock to funk to jazz–both modern and traditional New Orleans-style—and conjuring a unique, high energy brew that is at once cerebral and elemental. This date should be quite the party.
Justin Hayward: Nov. 29, Borgata
Hayward, who spent more than 50 years as lead singer/guitarist/composer for The Moody Blues (he wrote such signature tracks as “Nights in White Satin,” “Question” and “Tuesday Afternoon”) will no doubt recreate those and many other Moodys’ tunes, as well as songs from his solo career.
Patti LaBelle: Dec. 6, Parx
It’s always special when Philly’s own “Miss Patti” hits the stage with her inimitable vocal stylings and larger-than-life stage presence. Tickets: axs.com.
The Musical Box: Dec. 7, Caesars
For our money, this Montreal-based quintet, which focuses on the music of Genesis when it was a “prog-rock” band fronted by Peter Gabriel (before they became a chart-topping pop act with drummer Phil Collins as lead singer), is the greatest tribute band of all. And its salute to the group’s 1973-’74 “Selling England By the Pound”—which they’ll be doing to celebrate the LP’s 50th anniversary—is an astonishingly accurate recreation of that show—right down to the between-song patter.
BEAT: Dec. 7, Tropicana Atlantic City
And speaking of getting into the weeds of prog, the sub-genre of rock marked by experimentation, sophisticated arrangements, virtuosic instrumental work and extended pieces that are the antithesis of short, to-the-point and hook-laden pop tunes, this one’s a real curve ball for a casino:
Although BEAT’s lineup is comprised of guitarists Adrian Belew (David Bowie, Frank Zappa, Talking Heads) and Steve Vai (David Lee Roth, Alice Cooper, Motorhead), bassist Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel, Stevie Nicks, Pink Floyd) and drummer Danny Carey (Tool). This show is dedicated exclusively to three 1980s albums—”Discipline,” “Beat” and “Three to A Perfect Pair”– released by prog-rock progenitors, King Crimson.
‘SNL’ alumni
In addition, fans of “Saturday Night Live” in the 1990s have three chances to relive those days this fall. Rob Schneider visits Hard Rock on Sept. 27, while on Nov. 9, David Spade performs at Ocean and Jim Breuer yuks it up at Borgata.
