It is the ultimate jam session. “Rolling Stone Presents: Amplified at Illuminarium” is packing more than a thousand photos, a couple hundred videos and 1,300 magazine covers (guess which) into its new show at Area15.
The experience opened Friday. It lasts and hour, but spans generations.
Never has James Brown grooved so fast, or Jimmy Page performed such a quick-cut guitar solo. This is a rock revival that teaches history but not as a lesson. It’s eight chapters hearkening to the era of 8-tracks, vinyl and CDs and downloads.
Story time
The creative team is giving Amplified time to see if Las Vegas has an appetite, not just for destruction, but for another immersive attraction. Executive Producer Brad Siegel had known of Illuminarium’s shows from his time in Atlanta, where Illuminarium CEO Alan Greenberg opened his first venue in 2021. He also runs one in Vancouver, with plans to expand to Sydney and Barcelona.
Siegel saw the shows at Area15, including “Wild,” “Space,” and “Immersive Van Gogh” and “Immersive Disney Animation.” His Trip Advisor-style review, “I think the shows that you have are spectacular. They’re breathtaking. They look beautiful. The audio is amazing. The space is amazing.”
However …
“What I’m missing is the story. I’m a storyteller, that’s what I do,” Siegel says. “I’ve observed this with other immersive experiences, almost all of them. They don’t take the viewer from a beginning to an end. It doesn’t have to be a linear story, but there’s no journey they’re really following.”
His New World
Siegel, founder of Brand New World Studios, previously created content at TNT, TCM, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. He’s led the development and production of more than 125 projects, including “The All-Star Music Tribute Concert Series” for John Lennon, Bob Marley, Johnny Cash, Joni Mitchell, Brian Wilson and Burt Bacharach. He was also executive producer of the “Wizard of Oz in Concert” at Lincoln Center.
“This is a form of music that changed culture. It revolutionized the world, and that was the story that we wanted to tell,” Siegel says “But we said, let’s do it through the images of rock ‘n’ roll photos, thousands of photos, and hundreds of archival clips, the music and the songs that have become the soundtrack of our lives.”
We see Elvis to The Beatles, naturally, leading the usual suspects in such an effort. The Rolling Stones, Who, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Queen and Led Zeppelin. The Ramones, Janis Joplin, Public Enemy, Prince, Ziggy Marley, Sinead O’Connor, The Killers and Imagine Dragons (covering Las Vegas) and Phish pop into this multigenre festival.
The history of rock is legacy-heavy, with those who developed and advanced the medium in its first few decades. But “Amplified” draws in those in their commercial peak. Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Chappell Roan are just a sampling of those on the bill. Similar to inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the “Amplified” roster includes rock-ish artists. Freestyle rapper M-82, for one, is in the mix.
“We may love the classic artists, but we love the new artists who are out there performing today,” Siegel says. “We just love music.”
Rocking since kids
The eight chapters cover such topics as hair, cars, messages, fans and a breakdown of the instruments.
Among Siedel’s partners at Illuminarium is a visionary he’s known since she was age 10 growing up on Long Island, former Rolling Stone Creative Director Jodi Peckman.
“When Brad called and said, ‘I have something really interesting for you,’ I didn’t know much about immersive shows. I’d never been to one,” Peckman says. “But through my research, I saw photographs hadn’t really been used in immersive shows. Everybody loves to look at photographs, everybody loves to look at rock photographs. Who wouldn’t want to look at them 40 feet tall, right?”
Joe Levy has dropped in the script, read by the unannounced narrator Kevin Bacon, the “Footloose” actor and half of The Bacon Brothers folk-rock duo.
Former Rolling Stone Executive Editor Joe Levy led the process of creating chapters and topics to carry the story.
“Some of the topics, like cars or hair, are things that I’ve thought a lot about and sometimes written a lot about in the past,” Levy says. The band section with the greatest singers, just this whole notion of, wow, look this amazing collection of great guitarists, singers, drummers, bassists, everyone you would want in the greatest band of all time. I thought, ‘How can I put this in an expository statement, with a little bit of poetry?’”
Working in concert
Greenberg is encouraged by the popularity of legacy rock, and rock in general, among headliners in Las Vegas.
“Look at what’s happening with the Sphere with rock-and-roll legends, they’re selling out like crazy, tickets for over $1,000,” Greenberg says. “We’re talking about a show that is multigenerational, from ages 20 to 80.”
The band Greenberg saw in his first concert, ever, is still playing the Strip. “It was Chicago, in a place called The Mosque in Virginia. Then it was Janis Joplin in Nashville, Tennessee, they were back-to-back.”
Those memories were yesterday. Now it looks as though they’re here to stay. The band backing “Amplified” is betting on it.
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.
