Luke Bryan's country party takes residency in Las Vegas this weekend: Interview

Where Luke Bryan goes, a party follows.

His show — a hip-shaking punch of country-pop that can stretch in a given year from Midwest farm fields to Cancun beaches — takes on a new challenge this month: Sin City

The Georgia-raised Music Row powerhouse, known for judging "American Idol" and cutting more than two-dozen chart-topping country radio hits, heads to Las Vegas this week to debut his first desert residency inside Resorts World, a new casino and 5,000-person theater operated by concert promotion giant AEG.

Called "Vegas," the reigning ACM Awards' Entertainer of the Year kicks off a nine-show run at Resorts World this Friday. Shows at the theater continue through Feb. 26.

What are the all-time greatest country songs?: These 100 top our list

And, no spoiler: It'll be a party.

"I have a little anxiety about me gambling all my money that I make out there," Bryan told The Tennessean last week with a laugh. "Nah, I'm playin'. I'm excited because the theater is a technological marvel and we can really get in and have fun."

In a new interview with the USA Today Network, Bryan discusses his upcoming residency, Elvis Presley influence and who he's picking in the upcoming Super Bowl.

[This interview was edited and condensed.]

You haven't consistently headlined a room this intimate since graduating to arenas nearly a decade ago. How're you putting your stamp on playing a 5,000-person theater?

I've always went 110% every night, and I'll do that in Vegas. The main thing for me is being able to connect with the fans and being in the room and making it feel special and intimate and fun. Energetic and certainly hit on all the sensories. Make it feel like a big stadium show, but then to be able to break down and make it feel like something real special, too.

We'll get in there and fill it out and learn as we go. You can go rehearse a million times, but when you put live bodies in the room, that sets the tone. The main thing for me is to just get in there and do a high-energy show, keep everybody having a good time.

A Vegas show seems like the go-to move right now for sought-after entertainers. Why did it make sense for you?

Years ago, the stigma of Vegas was it's where artists go to be put out pasture, I guess. That was a little bit of a stigma. I think now, all bets are off on that. When you look at Adele — she postponed her residency — but right now [she's] at the height of her career and she's doing a Vegas residency.

My opinion of it was it was a [different] opportunity in a big, new casino, a new room. I was like, 'Hey, let's go try this thing. Let's see if it's something I like.' I may get out there in the dry climate is rough on my voice and it's not something I'll necessarily be able to do for a long time. But I think Resorts World is going to naturally bring a lot of people in. If I look out there in Vegas and there are fans that don't look like your typical country fans and come from all over there world, it'll be fun to showcase my music to them.

Do you think residencies like those in Vegas could translate to Nashville?

The way Nashville is growing and the way tourism is flocking to Nashville ... as the number of those fans flock to Nashville, I think the ability to do a residency becomes more and more a possibility. I'm a never-say-never kind-of person. I think the interesting part about that is sittin' there with a piano and guitar and telling stories about how you wrote this song and why you wrote it. How it changed your life. A residency in Nashville is something I would always take very seriously, if I wanna do that one day.

Will there be any of that in Vegas? Sitting down and telling stories?

I want to be careful. You don't want to get too long with that. Even for the whole history of my touring, if I ever noticed there was a period in the show where the energy took a downturn, I would scrap that part of the show and yield to keep the energy up. We're gonna have those moments in the show, but the overall theme is to keep the Vegas party alive.

You've said before that as a kid one of your first exposures to Las Vegas, at least culturally, was a live Elvis Presley album ["On Stage"] in your family's collection.

As a kid, I listened to that record every day of my life. My mother was a huge Elvis fan. I had a little record player in my room. I didn't even have all of Elvis' records, but for some reason I had that record in my stack. Even in this show, there may be a little Elvis love getting thrown out there. [Paying] homage to Elvis.

Your show opens a few days before the Super Bowl. Any rooting interest between the Rams and Bengals?

I would say I lean towards the Rams in this one. I had been for Cincinnati. By nature, human beings get tired of the same team winning. Any time there's new blood in the Super Bowl, it's always really fun and makes it more interesting. Cincinnati's certainly the underdog and they have been most of the year, so it's really cool what they've been able to do. But I lost a lot of money betting against Cincinnati; I wasn't mad about them being in there, but I gotta lean towards the Rams and Matthew Stafford.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Luke Bryan shows in Las Vegas at Resorts World February, 2022