Ne-Yo + El Gran Combo

Ne-Yo

Photograph courtesy of Island/Def Jam

You can stop scratching your head: The names above are correct. However, it’s only fitting that this bill’s eclecticism reads like a holdover from showbiz past, like something that might’ve transpired on TheEd Sullivan Show. Ne-Yo, the youthful R&B chart-topper, is invading the regular stomping grounds of El Gran Combo, the graybeard salsa institution, to effectively close the most recent incarnation of the storied Copacabana after five years on West 34th Street. (Backstory: The city has invoked eminent domain to condemn several buildings in the area in order to extend the crosstown subway line that will eventually link Times Square to the Javits Center.)

Of course, this being the genre-driven new millennium—rather than the pre-Vegas era that got the original Copa rolling in the ’40s—to catch both acts you’ll have to pay separate admissions. No doubt that the crowd for Def Jam’s songwriting dynamo will skew a tad younger than El Gran Combo’s—to say nothing of being less multilingual. But some overlap exists: Both cater to the beat-conscious folk that the Copa began courting in earnest when it turned into a dance-music palace in the late ’70s. And word has it that club owner John Juliano is negotiating to set up shop on West 18th, in the former site of the Roxy, until another suitably palatial spot becomes available.