Gordie Brown

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Gordie Brown reminds us what it is about a live show — a real person working his tail off — that can’t be duplicated even if you have Blu-ray, a 52-inch, 1080p LCD screen and 5.1 surround sound.

His impressions are so-so. The comedy is hit and miss. But it’s safe to say everyone who walks out of Brown’s show leaves entertained and pretty damn impressed.

Here’s an entertainer who breaks a sweat, and hits you with so much material from so many different directions, he wins you over in a way that probably wouldn’t translate to watching it on Comedy Central.

You give it up for the exhausting effort Brown puts in by dancing like Usher or M.C. Hammer, if not a fascination with how his mind works. A joke combining ’90s rock group 4 Non Blondes and a Brazilian wax job? Jimmy Stewart telling a joke about Britney Spears? It makes your head swim, and that seems to be the goal.

The Canadian impressionist doesn’t let professional setbacks slow continued improvements to his act. Brown was swept into a custom theater at The Venetian in late 2006, but swept out early this year for reasons not made entirely clear (they seem to involve the better-known Wayne Brady selling more tickets).

Brown landed at the V Theater in the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood. He lost his band in the process, but not his work ethic. He’s off the stage and into the audience from the get-go, working the crowd to a blues riff. The recorded music isn’t ideal, but technology allows the button-pusher to keep up with his rapid cue changes.

The gist of the act remains song parodies of the old MAD magazine school: jokes about Michael Bolton being washed up set to one of his tunes, or the five-times married Kenny Rogers singing "She Believes Me" (versus "In Me") when he’s been out tomcatting.

Riffs on Green Day and Coldplay are sandwiched squarely between the Rogers bit and the obligatory Willie Nelson-Julio Iglesias duet of "To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before," with Brown pointing out — rather than trying to ignore — the fact that not all the impressions are going to hit home with all age groups.

The thing that most separates Brown from Mirage rival Danny Gans is that Brown always goes for the gag, while Gans does some of his impressions seriously, inviting you to listen for accuracy. It doesn’t matter that Brown’s Randy Travis and Garth Brooks voices sound just alike, because it’s about the joke and not the quality of the impression.

The visuals are another story. Just as fate deeded Rich Little a facial resemblance to Richard Nixon, Brown has mastered the best George W. Bush face of anyone out there attempting to imitate him. He has learned to not be timid in using it, while stopping short of hard political satire.

At a couple of points, an already fast-paced show jumps into hyperspace, with what you might call a Gordie Brown mash-up: voices machine-gunned together with a certain bizarre logic for a comic tour de force: Johnny Cash into Sixpence None the Richer into Barenaked Ladies into Daniel Powter into James Blunt and whew, you’re reeling.

The speed of the whole 70-minute act makes it easier to forget the dumb parts. If I hadn’t taken notes, I already would have forgotten the flat bits about Alanis Morissette and Midol, or something about David Bowie arguing with a dinner date.

People may not remember the funny stuff with much more clarity either. But they’ll remember how hard Brown worked to put it over. And that they like the guy.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.