Review from LasVegasMagazine.com
Our Pal Joey: Witness the Return of the Classic Lounge Act
By Jack Houston / Las Vegas Magazine Staff Writer
Hello Las Vegas, meet your new best friend. His name is Joe Piscopo and he's from exit 16. That's the turnpike exit that leads to Passaic, N.J., the city where Piscopo was born. It's a common joke among New Jerseyans when meeting a fellow Garden Stater for the first time to ask, "What exit?" Piscopo has spent his entire career touting his home state and even sings a country song about being a Jersey boy in his new show in the Shimmer Cabaret at the Las Vegas Hilton.
He jokes about wanting to be the Anthony Quinn of Jersey, with a child at every exit, and his three younger children (ages 8, 4 and 2)show that he is well on his way. When we meet at his suite on the 19th floor of the Hilton, it seems as if neither fame nor a headlining gig in Vegas nor luxury accommodations can top the pride Piscopo feels in being a father.
"I am dork dad deluxe," he said. "I'm so committed to the kids."
Piscopo admits that his own childhood was rocky ("I was a discipline problem," he recalled), but it's hard to imagine the high-on-life, mile-a-minute Piscopo as anything but a constructive presence. He started the Positive Impact Foundation, a nonprofit organization that creates positive media images of at-risk youth, in 1997, and continues to see his own kids, commuting from Vegas to Jersey every week to spend time with them. In turn, they provide an audience when he rehearses his Sinatra-inspired material on the way to school in the morning.
"These kids all know all the standards. When they first heard Frank Sinatra singing, they said, 'Oh, that's you, Daddy!' I went, 'Yes, it is, actually.' Isn't that wild? They know the riffs, they know the bits that I do in the show, because in the car, I go, 'Daddy's going to do this onstage,' and I virtually rehearse it with my little audience there."
Onstage, Piscopo is a facsimile of his offstage self, brimming with energy, hawking Jersey pride in between songs and paying tribute to the ghosts of Vegas past. With a mix of music, comedy, impressions and candid audience interaction, it is as if he is single-handedly returning Vegas to the days of the Rat Pack. Indeed, he's at his best re-creating the magic of Sinatra, laying into standards like "I've Got You Under My Skin" and "Night and Day" backed by one-time Sinatra conductor Vincent Falcone on piano and a sextet of top jazz cats. The Old Man, as Piscopo affectionately refers to Sinatra, is in good hands.
"What we're trying to do is retro the show, so we can (re-create what it was like) onstage: an entertainer that does a little bit of everything where you really get your money's worth," he said. "I just need broads. That's all I need. Didn't those guys always have broads with 'em?"
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