Tao

Review

Tao. Everyone wants to be like you. Everyone wants to go to you. But the truth of the matter is no one has been able to match your status.

And while you fit the population of Rhode Island inside your club, a crowd big enough to fill the state of Texas waits outside. Could you be any more popular?

Probably not, but you will try.

Tao has bucked the trend that so many of the "it" nightclubs before it have faced. Despite nearing its fifth year of existence, the admiration for Tao has yet to wane. We regular folk stand in long lines hoping to get in and celebrities still flock here to be seen partying it up in skybox booths.  

Is Tao the most comfortable place? Truthfully, no. With so many people there you won't get in a good conversation or really be able to dance. But you came to Tao for a party didn't you? And when you leave Tao at 3 a.m., the time you would normally look for an afterhours spot, odds are you're going to be too tired because you just used all your energy having the time of your life.

You're going to tell your grandkids about the club you went into once that had women covered in flower petals dancing inside of a tub. On most Friday and Saturday nights you wouldn't see more celebrities on a Hollywood movie set than you would at Tao. The list is too big to think about posting here, but names like Paris Hilton, T-Pain, Slash, Charles Barkley, Pamela Anderson and a host of reality TV stars have all been spotted there.  

It's hard to pinpoint one thing that makes Tao so great, but you can find a bunch of things and string those together to come up with the answer. For starters, you don't have to go anywhere else. You can start your day soaking up the sun at Tao Beach, grab a bite to eat at Tao Restaurant, hook up some pre-party drinks at the lounge at Tao and, oh yeah, there's still the club to go to.

The décor at Tao has to be seen to be understood, but here are some of the highlights: an army of Buddhas, women dancing in the aforementioned tubs, oversized-jade Buddha heads and perhaps the only abacus in the world that's used for decoration.

The area is separated into different rooms, giving you a chance to change the atmosphere by moving to a different part of the club. If you're looking for an out- of-control riot of a party, go to the main room where the bodies on the dance floor flow into each other and after a few seconds you won't know where you end and someone else begins.

Or take it a down a notch in the smaller room to the left of the entrance. There's still a decent amount of people there, but you have a bit more freedom to move around. Or even take the party outside to Tao Beach and party poolside.

It wasn't known five years ago that Tao would become this popular, but with the crowds still piling up outside it doesn't look like the party will come to an end anytime soon. Like the true meaning of the word Tao, the club has no beginning or end. According to our short-attention spans in Vegas, Tao always was the "it" place.

-- Review by Justin Lawson