Vegas 2017

What a crappy weekend for Daylight Savings Time! We made it to our hotel in LA around 2 AM, which instantly became 3 AM (spring forward!), and then we were out the door back towards Las Vegas at 8 AM. Ouch.

pit stop

This week's Vegas gig was a corporate event at Mandalay Bay. It's our fourth year playing this event, though the format has changed from an "American Idol" style show with seven or eight featured songs to more of a "Tonight Show" band thing, playing short snippets of songs (around fifty-five in total) to cover the transitions between speakers, awards, and video presentations.

We made it back to Vegas around lunchtime, ate, set up, and sat around at a rehearsal for a few hours. Very little music was made. Thank god for the mindlessness of smart phones. We were released around 7 PM.

Previously, we've always stayed at Mandalay Bay, but this year our hotel rooms were next door in the Luxor. I was curious to see what rooms would look like inside the pyramid, but unfortunately we were housed in adjoining towers.

Monday: Elvis is still here, though he's dressed for the show in Hawaii.

Day 2 of rehearsals was more of the same; lots of phone gazing and the occasional musical vamp. We got out early, which was confusing because we still hadn't played the show all the way through (and we had the next day off completely).

Meanwhile, Kip took the van out for repairs. Three news studs, brake job, and tire repair.

(photo cred: Kip!)

Monday night was pizza night, so we all took a field trip to Grimaldi's Pizza in The Venetian. Excellent New York pizza.

We exited a side door out of The Venetian, so we walked to The Wynn for taxis. Behold the light show at The Wynn!

Tuesday: Day off. Greg, Monkeyboy, Pete, Nick, and I borrowed the van for a sightseeing adventure to the Hoover Dam. Before the dam, Nick led us on a hike through the Arizona desert.

The hike took us to the top of hill overlooking Lake Mead, the reservoir behind the Hoover Dam. Quite a view.

On the way back to Vegas, we stopped at the Hoover Dam.

The "bathtub ring" shows how low Lake Mead has gotten in the last ten years--down over one hundred feet.

I would like to know how many cell phones have accidentally slid down the face of the dam.

photo cred: Greg Lee!

The Luxor at night.

Wednesday: Show day! We had a big rehearsal (but still didn't make it through the entire show) and then the actual performance back to back.

Run time for the show itself was around two and a half hours-a very long time to sit there! Our performance was really solid. I was too focused on it to notice much else going on in the arena.

After the show, we all went our separate ways to go eat, relax, or pack, but at some point in the evening, we all made the pilgrimage over to see TJ Tyler in Mandalay Bay, still giving the people a strong Sinatra performance.

Thursday: Take me home!