By John Katsilometes
Published Saturday, May 30, 2015 | 4:35 p.m.
Updated Sunday, May 31, 2015 | 12:59 p.m.
The Kats Report Bureau checked in with Michael Grimm on Friday night at Vinyl at the Hard Rock Hotel. He’s beginning a residency at the 600-seat rock club that lasts through the end of August. The nights are 8:30 Fridays through Sundays, plus 6:30 Saturdays.
The 2010 champion of “America’s Got Talent,” Grimm is remains a dichotomy, onstage and off. He is blessed with rare, penetrating vocal qualities and a real knack for delivering classic rock and R&B songs. He’s also a terrific songwriter, as his new release “Grimm” reminds. Grimm feels the music and makes you feel it, too, but between songs he puckishly apologizes for his perceived (by him) lack of stage presence.
“I’m sorry,” he says, more than once, “but I’m not good with words.” But such moments only pull the audience closer, as Grimm is forever the guy you want to succeed, at whatever level.
Grimm’s show is further boosted by the presence of his wife, Lucie, who is becoming more of a presence in Grimm’s career as a stage performer and also in helping to book his shows. He has given her credit for lining up this gig at Vinyl, and Lucie hits the stage in the show in two dance sequences. The most tantalizing is during Grimm’s cover of “You Can Leave Your Hat On,” in which she performs an abbreviated striptease.
“I am forgetting what I’m singing,” Grimm laughed while watching Lucie groove across the stage in Friday’s performance. “I didn’t expect this.” But expect some stripped-down, live music from Grimm and his three-piece backing unit. The man, the album and even the band are just called “Grimm,” and it’s simple enough.
Original article: http://lasvegassun.com/blogs/kats-report/2015/may/30/vinyl-spins-michael-grimm-ceo-taking-over-downtown/