Rain Nightclub

When Rain Nightclub poured itself into the heart of Vegas' nightlife scene in late 2001, it was filling a relatively empty vessel. Sure, there were clubs, there were places to dance, but the city was coming off the heels of an ill-advised attempt to be overtly kid-friendly and it was time to get back to what Sin City was best at – sin.

With the help of a Las Vegas season of MTV's "The Real World," The Palms and, subsequently, Rain, was caught up in a typhoon-sized wave of hype, fun and debauchery. But was (or is) that pace sustainable?

Rain, if it could talk, would probably say, "Yes." Or it would let out a whoop and pull a crazy dance move, in the nightclub equivalent of a positive response.

Today, more than six years since the heavens parted and Rain fell down on Sin City, everyone's still enjoying the metaphorical weather inside The Palms.

The club's design was markedly impressive when it opened and it still remains one of the just genuinely neat-looking venues in town. Rain is laid out almost like a gladiator arena. There's a center area with the dance floor and tiered rings of seating (tables and booths and bars) going up in near-circles around it. Though some of the levels don't go all the way around and some start and stop in sections, the general gist is there.

Bars are scattered throughout the tiers, with one located conveniently immediately to your right when you enter the club (through a crazy-looking mirrored light tunnel thing). If you go with bottle service for your thirst-quenching needs, Rain's options run all over the board, or all over the club. There are private cabanas, water booths and skyboxes, in addition to the traditional tables, and they all seem to fill up most nights.

The DJ booth is easily one of the least pretentious in all of Sin City – it's a small area off the dance floor, near one of the VIP areas (which also minimizes pretension) and it helps give Rain a sense of community. Everybody's in it together for a good time at the club -- you, the DJ, the celebrity, everyone's sharing a similar experience. (Not to say, though, that there isn't some major force coming out of that booth – Rain's music usually reads, or plays, like a best-of compilation of everything you'd want to dance to in a club.)

Most of this is standard stuff for a club nowadays, but what Rain had then, and still has now, (that few clubs can match even today) is basically a show going on all the time. The lighting system in the club is almost entrancing and when the rig in the center starts shooting out fire over the crowds (huge, billowing flame clouds, really), there are generally a few dropped jaws – and, occasionally, a dropped drink. It's that cool.

It used to be that people would hope and wish for nice weather on vacation, but in Vegas, for the last several years, people have been praying for Rain.

– Jamie Helmick