Hello everyone!
We have recently returned form our little trip to Las Vegas, NV performing with Leatherwolf, and thought I'd post some thoughts on the event while I still had it fresh in my mind.
For those that are unaware, Las Vegas is only about 5 1/2 -6 hours south of Salt Lake City, and we decided it would be cool to make a road trip out of this! The only K5 member that wasn't along for the ride was Marc, who went down a day early with his wife and friend to visit family that lives out that way. The rest of us piled into Matt's M.A.V. (that's Utah-talk for SUV's... M.ormon A.ssualt V.ehicle!) Saturday morning, which was packed to the brim with our gear and luggage, and hit the I-15 corridor and started our southern trek to sin city.
The drive went fairly quick, and we arrived at Jeff Baker's house (The promoter) around 3:00pm. We hung around his pad for a few hours with Ronny (Metal Church), Wade and Eric (Leatherwolf) and tipped back a beer or two in the process, exchanging typical heavy metal banter, gossip, movie imitations and road stories... A Katagory V pastime favorite!
Everyone drove down to the club around 5:00pm and watched Leatherwolf set up and sound check, Apperantly, Eric (Leatherwolf guitarist) had a bad speaker cab that failed the night before toward the end of their set, so Curtis went to Home depot to get a washer to repair it. After getting the cab up and running, we then loaded our gear up on stage and tested things out. The opening act, a local cover band called Unpaid Vacation, required our assistance as they had only been told to bring their instruments, so we left our gear up on stage along with Leatherwolf's back line for them to use. That actually made it easy for us, all we had to do was plug in and go when we went on... I love it when a plan comes together! We filled in the rest of the time at the bar drinking a few beers, exposing the mangina, losing money on the video poker machines, talking "Wookie" (everyone can ask Ronny about that! Mona the bartender was NOT amused, I repeat - NOT amused!), and people watching... Another Katagory V pastime favorite!
Lynn and Curtis returned back to Jeff's house to freshen up and relax before we had to go on, while the rest of us stayed at the bar, hanging out with Wade, Geoff and Ronny; I set up the merch area and baby sat that stuff while milking a Heineken. Tons o' fun when youre the commander of the finances!
10:00pm hit - and we went on, here was the nights set list:
Will You Remember
Evil Princess
The Elitist
*Kings of the Valley
Fading in...
In Dark Night
Risk and Sacrifice
*(New Song!)
We were operating mostly off of stage sound, which wasn't too bad, the stage mix sounded pretty close to what I would hear in the rehearsal studio. Of course, since Lynn was using his wireless mic, I somehow ended up with the actual lead mic, and at the begining, I was WAY louder than Lynn when I sang the back-ups, and had to back off the mic quite a bit. I had several "farts and Clams" toward the end of the set, but otherwise played rather well. The other K5 guys seemed to be doing okay through the set, and I didn't recall hearing many complaints from them on their sound mixes, and also I remember seeing all the K5 guys with big smiles ear to ear. I think the only near-disaster we had, was Matt kicking off the new song "Kings of the Valley" too soon, and everyone in the band coming in one measure late each, one at a time. Thankfully we pulled out of it unscathed. Matt, who was playing on Dean's kit, was way out of his element, being that Dean's set-up is not anywhere close to what Matt is used to playing on, He had to compensate for that, but still did a brilliant job at it. As long as Matt has two Double-Bass drums, he tends to do all right.
I want to take a moment and acknowlage the all front row people. There was these metal heads that were practically on the stage with us, head banging, fists in the air and really getting into our tunes. These guys were going nuts!!! They had never heard us before, and before we even got to the second song, were going crazy!!! Hell half way through the songs, they were catching the lyrics and singing along with Lynn! We love that, and want to thank these guys for showing everyone what being METAL is all about!
Once we got off stage, we all piled outside for some fresh air and talked with the many peeps that were there that night. We were very happy with the crowd response and the compliments that were passed out. Mission accomplished. The Merch sales were a bit thin though, but those that came up to us and bought something at the booth, did so with much appreciation and enthusiasm. We cannot say enough good things for those that support us this way, as long as metal fans like this exist, hopefully it will keep us going!
At the end of the night, we did the ritual of hitting Denny's for some good eats and driving them crazy with our drunken antics, and then headed back to the house for some much needed rest before the long drive home. After getting only four hours of sleep, we packed up the M.A.V. and returned to Salt Lake, hopeing to bring the rebellion back to Las Vegas again in the future.
We had a real amazing time in Las Vegas, and thankfully didn't gamble our money away!
A big thanks to Jeff Baker for EVERYTHING!!! This guy has helped us out in more ways than we can count, he is the man! Also, a huge bear hug and thanks to Ronny "Cock blocker!?" from Metal Church, all the guys in Leatherwolf, Tailspin, Marc's wife and friend for watching the merch booth while we were on stage, and all the Vegas Metal heads that were on hand that night!
Dustin
top 10 Highlights:
1.) Wade Black yelling at Dean across the bar, "dean...Dean!!! ...we need to add Craig Nielson (Flotsam & Jetsam drummer)to the guest list!!! (Craig never showed up)
2.) ...Jizzy Pearl (Ratt, ex-Love/Hate) showed up instead!
3.) Wade talking to me & Curtis at the house until 5:00am... he didn't sleep due to having to catch an early flight.
4.) The mangina strikes again (picture coming soon?)
5.) Chewbacca...
6.) Carolyn attempting to rip my Nocturnal Rites T-shirt off my back, and giving me the look of death all night for not selling it to her.
7.) Ronny calling Wade a cock-blocker
8.) Guy on the front row yelling at lynn, holy shit!!! Fates Fuckin' Warning!!!!.. you guys kick ass!!!!'
9.) same guy yelling at Curtis, Jim...JJJIIIIMMMMM!!!! (possibly referring to Jim Matheos?)
10.) Ronny plugging up Jeff's toilet with Quizno's Lettuce just before I go in to use it
