March 18, 2024

Viva Las Vegas #17 has been announced for Easter weekend 2014 and this post lays out reasons to consider going, particularly if you yet to experience VLV.

First, there’ll be over 60 bands on multiple stages that are spread throughout Vegas’ Orleans Hotel, pool area and vintage car show.  The event’s booking policy emphasizes band quality over star power particularly since Tom Ingram, the founder of VLV, is a dedicated fan himself.  Few of the featured bands will ever play the Bay Area.  Some, like Lil’ Mo and the Dynaflos, really have to be experienced live.  By the end, it is common to leave VLV with considerable appreciation for several bands one really just stumbled across. [youtube id=”lHuJ8S3rz0w” width=”600″ height=”350″]

Bands on stages are to be expected, but VLV is more than that.  The car show, which fills an arena-sized parking lot with pre-’64 rides, and hosts one of the stages, is an event within an event.  So much so, that one popular ticket is available for admission to the car show only.  Keep in mind that every car, motorcycle, ice cream truck and trailer on the lot gets driven there.  No kit-car trailer queens allowed!  Black primer and Pabst encouraged!

The auditorium stage too takes on a life of its own.  The Satin Dollz light it up with singing and dancing that’s somewhere between a World War II USO tour and Broadway.  Deke Dickerson, surely the first to be inducted into the Guitar Geek Hall of Fame (if we ever get one), will display and play several guitars from his over-the-top collection.  Deke can play a Doors song on Robbie Krieger’s original guitar.  So how cool is that?  And then there’s the burlesque show; always well-attended to be sure.[youtube id=”YK_A5OR1zvk” width=”600″ height=”350″]

The pool area is another show within a show.  How about vintage swimsuits, the best DJs, tiki-wear, and poolside drinking with tanned and tattooed beauties?  Ahh, life is good.

The four-day ticket is mighty reasonable at $120 and leaves extra money for VLV’s vendors whose unique merchandise has an uncanny ability to suck money directly out of one’s wallet.  Moving on tickets for this Easter Weekend show helps because it will sell out.  For more, follow the link in the second paragraph to VLV’s site or this link to the Hicks with Sticks report from VLV #14.

 

 

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