Adele ready to announce Vegas dates — and soon

Adele says only a piece of staging apparatus is keeping her from announcing the restart of her Las Vegas Strip production.

“I had my shows that I was supposed to be doing, but they didn’t happen,” she called out to the crowd Friday at the first of two Hyde Park shows in London. “But we’re announcing them very, very soon. I’m just waiting on one piece of equipment.”

Those familiar with Adele’s plans for Vegas report she is expected to announce this month (possibly within the week) she will headline at the Colosseum between October and December of this year. Her plan is to fulfill at least the 24 postponed dates for “Weekends With Adele.”

What that equipment might be hasn’t been specified. It’s not likely a fake lake. Adele is not fond of indoor lakes. It’s not a massive, custom sound system, either. Her sound setup is still reportedly in storage, awaiting her return to Vegas. Same for the video panels she wanted to set up in front of the Colosseum’s LED screens.

Morrissey is currently performing his “Viva Moz Vegas” engagement at the Caesars Palace venue. The venue’s dedicated 11-person stage crew will then be laid off through the summer, returning in September, when Rod Stewart is back. Ideally, that team would start working on Adele’s show after Stewart closes.

Adele appeared on BBC’s Radio Desert Island Discs show before her Hyde Park appearance. As quoted in the U.K. Sun, she told interviewer Lauren Laverne she “definitely felt everyone’s disappointment” upon her announcement. She described her feelings as “devastated.” She had used “gutted” in her video message.

“I was frightened about letting them down and I thought I could pull it together and make it work, and I couldn’t,” the superstar said. “I stand by that decision. I don’t think any other artist would have done what I did, and I think that is why it was such a massive, massive story.”

Adele announced in a tearful video address Jan. 20 she was indefinitely sidelining her residency because of COVID-operational issues. All 24 of her dates were expected to sell out. Thousands of fans, including those from the U.K. and Australia, have been left holding tickets and forced to shuffle travel plans.

Hyde Park Night 1! What a crowd!! pic.twitter.com/t3DBH8z5fb

— Adele (@Adele) July 2, 2022

Caesars Entertainment (which owns the Colosseum) and Live Nation (which books the Colosseum) have not commented about plans to return “Weekends.”

Adele has since raked through her creative team, turning loose acclaimed designer Es Devlin (working on the Rolling Stones 60th anniversary production) and hiring Kim Gavin (who has worked with Take That) to re-direct the show.

Adele has been holding firm to her strategy to bring her first residency to the Strip. Her own artistic standards override financial and logistical issues.

“It was like, ‘I don’t care’ and things like that. You can’t buy me. You can’t buy me for nothing. I’m not going to just do a show because I have to or because people are going to be let down or because we are going to lose loads of money,” she said during the radio telecast. “I’m like, ‘The show is not good enough.’”

Adele is also unapologetic about the dearth of her own updates about the Vegas show.

“Of course I could be someone on TikTok or Instagram Live every day being like, ‘I am working on it.’ Of course I am working on it!” she said. “I’m not going to update you if I haven’t got anything to update you with, because that just leads to more disappointment. Maybe that’s not been well balanced, either.”

Hyde Park Night 1! What a crowd!! pic.twitter.com/t3DBH8z5fb

— Adele (@Adele) July 2, 2022

The 34-year-old superstar did feel the anguish about the postponement.

“Maybe my silence has been deadly. I don’t know. But it was horrible and the reaction was brutal,” Adele said. “I was a shell of a person for a couple of months … I just had to wait it out and just grieve it. Just grieve the shows and get over the guilt. But it was brutal.”

Piff & Pop

Let it be known that comic magician Piff the Magic Dragon has a skill for naming things, including himself. The artist whose legal name is John van der Put has released “Reptile Dysfunction,” an hourlong special on his YouTube channel. An exuberant Penn Jillette plays Piff’s father, Pop. He neatly fills the role, and also the dragon suit.

The live segments were captured in January 2018, when Piff was still headlining the Bugsy’s Cabaret space.

A Las Vegas success story as “The Loser of America’s Got Talent,” Piff has since moved to the Flamingo Showroom. In January he signed a three-year extension with Caesars Entertainment, locked in through 2025. He moved as a side act in the original “Vegas Nocturne” at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas for his own show in 2014. He’s been a hit for Matt and Angela Stabile’s Stabile Productions ever since.

“We’ve always just taken it sort of a day at a time and worked on whatever is in front of us, just kind of concentrating on making tonight’s show,” van der Put says. “That seems to have worked for us. It’s amazing to look back to see how far we’ve come.”

Piff is joined by stage sidekick and life partner Showgirl Jade Simone and the great comic actor Brett Alters as Francis the Squire. Mr. Piffles is shown in full furry (er, flurry). Piff is also scheduled to tour the U.S. this fall with towering vocalist and comic actor Puddles Pity Party (played by Mike Geier) in “Misery Loves Company,” another inspired title.

Piff is “auditioning” a new Mr. Piffles, as the original is 14 1/2 years old and about to retire wherever stage chihuahuas spend their sunset years. He had adopted a chihuahua for that very reason. That dog is now 11 pounds and still growing, too big to fire from a prop cannon.

“So now we’ve got another dog in the family, but that’s the way it goes,” Van der Put says. “That’s how we’re having to find the next Mr. Piffles. Hopefully we won’t find ourselves overrun with chihuahuas.”

Cool Hang Alert

The ever-mirthsome Tony Arias performs “Direct From Las Vegas” at 6 p.m. (dinner), 7 p.m. (show) July 10 at Italian American Club. Arias, a very funny guy and a blow-it-out singer, shares his stories of living and working in Vegas for the past 40 years. Always a solid hang at the IAC Showroom. Go to iacvegas.com for details.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.