Day 20: Las Vegas, NV
Welcome
Yesterday we played a show in Las Vegas.
The mornings were always spectacular in Palm Springs and yesterday’s was no exception. It was clear and cool, and the tops of the palm trees had barely begun to shiver in the few wisps of breeze when I plunged into a shockingly crisp swimming pool to brusquely shed the cobwebs of sleep. I dried off and set the coffee machine to brew and as it began to spit and splutter, I assembled a breakfast bowl of granola, milk, banana, blueberries, and yoghurt.
At 8am we were out of the Airbnb, boarding the van for our final drive of the tour. We had 450km of road ahead of us and six hours before we were expected at the venue, so we set out at a relaxed pace that allowed us to cruise and appreciate some of the great freeways of the west coast. I-10 took us northwest towards Los Angeles, a broad concrete thoroughfare, three to four lanes in each direction generously populated by passenger vehicles and semi-trucks. The dry, weathered figures of the San Jacinto Mountains were up close and personal on the left-hand side of our van and in on the right were turbine farms trapping the powerful Santa Ana Winds that funnelled down the valley. It seemed to good to be true but we saw another wind turbine missing a blade, another cause for celebration at this culmination of four years of hard work from this intrepid group of tour-bingo players.
We passed through the city of San Bernadino and then linked up with I-215, a powerful and important auxiliary interstate highway, a tributary of I-15 that took us up to the Cajon Pass, the meeting point of the two great mountain ranges that watch over greater Los Angeles, the San Gabriel and the San Bernadino mountains. At this point the scenery changed very quickly as the road wound up into a rugged landscape, the billboards and industrial sprawl of the urban freeway corridor replaced by a wild cacophony of rocky shoulders and bumpy valleys covered in an uneven stubble of scrub and small trees. Struggling its way through this tough terrain was the railway line, a slow and scenic journey for a procession of cargo containers and oil tanks as the train spiralled back past itself, trying to gain altitude. We joined I-15 finally, this prodigious roadway carrying the designation of the Mojave Freeway as it left the mountains behind and sped northeast into the great west coast desert of the same name.
The road runs straight as an arrow as often as it can, often tens of kilometres at a time without even a gentle veer, and while this could make for a boring drive it does not for the views are simply breathtaking. Creosote bush and sagebrush loosely decorates the flat expanse of the desert floor which stretches out until eventually interrupted by the various mountain ranges that surrounded us. The taller forms of cacti sometimes dotted the hillsides, and we passed through stretches where the playful, curly forms of Joshua Trees were in abundance along the roadside. The even taller forms of pylons and powerlines flirted with the highway but sometimes kept to themselves.
We passed below Death Valley and at the entrance to this National Park, this remarkable geographical feature we saw another remarkable mark on the landscape, the world’s tallest thermometer, a twenty metres LED-bedazzled rod that proudly displayed an up-to-date temperature reading of one of the world’s hottest places.
We passed above the Mojave National Preserve, another great national park but one that wasn’t served by a megathermometer and so the temperature remained a mystery to us. The designation of our roadway changed once we entered the state of Nevada and became the Blue Star Memorial Highway. The quality of both the roadway and the scenery remained excellent, perhaps even improving slightly as we descended into the Goodsprings Valley and passed a futuristic solar thermal farm, thousands of mirrors reflecting the sunlight back to the towers at the centre of each array, energy harvested that would otherwise be heating the orange sand.
Ivanpah Solar Power Facility.
The city of Las Vegas is set inside an absolutely breathtaking landscape, a backdrop of mountains that is so beautiful it looks unreal, like a painted backdrop from an old Western movie. It was sad when this view was interrupted by a range of towering casinos, but it was also grand because this famous strip of buildings is also the backdrop to countless movies, films from a different age.
Entering the Las Vegas suburbs.
We rolled into Sin City ready for action, ready to give as good as we got in this town of fame and fortune, this sanctuary for decadence and debauchery. We rolled up to the casino in our Mercedes Benz Sprinter, pulling alongside the curb at the valet parking station, guns blazing, where we were told that we were an hour early and we couldn’t load into the venue yet. Paul drove us around the back to a carpark and we waited patiently, watching as casino staff came and went from a service entrance.
Waiting in the carpark.
It was 2pm when we rolled in for a second time, guns still blazing, and this time we were successful in our attempt to park and complete load-in, helped by a friendly gaggle of staff from the venue. We were back at the Virgin Hotels Vegas, Curio Collection by Hilton, an establishment not quite on the strip, but within a forty minute walk of the strip, the very same spot where we had played a show with Deathcab For Cutie and The Postal Service seven months earlier, but this time we were in a smaller room. Don’t worry though, we still had easy access to the same casino floor only a minute’s walk from the stage.
The venue was called 24 Oxford, a name that comes from Virgin Records’ origins story, a one of their original store locations in central London. It was a fine space for a rock show, if somewhat sterile. The room was wide and shallow, a waist-high stage providing an elevated position for the performers on one wall and a small, raised mezzanine set against the opposite wall to provide an elevated position for the viewers who required it. There was a bar of course, and a couple of red brick pillars in the shape of vees that were saturated, absolutely dripping with character, the linchpins of this architectural realisation. Having purchased our new in-ear-monitor rig The Beths now find themselves in an age where nothing goes wrong during the setup anymore, touch wood. Jon has meticulously labelled each cable to make the patch a thing of ease and simplicity, a system designed to eliminate mistakes and speed up the assembly process. Yesterday was no exception; everything worked as it should, and we were soundchecking ahead of schedule and enjoying the luxury of a few moments of rehearsal.
We ate dinner in the casino’s staff dining room, a novel but bleak experience, and then we returned to the venue for our final show of the tour. It was our first headline show in Vegas and as such we had no expectations. There are mysteries surrounding this city: where does everyone live? On the strip? Does everyone work in a casino? None of these questions were answered over the course of the evening. People did show up though. Jess Kallen played a beautiful set to open the evening and it was warmly received, an attentive crowd giving plenty of love and respect to the solo performer. They were a amazing for us too, up and dancing right off the start line and plenty of direct engagement with the band members. They were strong singers too. Very loud and somewhat tuneful.
At the end of the night, we hung around the casino for a bit enjoying a drink and a final chance to hang with Jess. After my last experience in Vegas, a night on the slots, I restrained myself this time and didn’t lose or gain a cent. Eventually we had to part ways with our good friend and head upstairs to our rooms to grab some sleep. It had been a long day, and we had an early flight in the morning. It was a strange place to end a tour but a good one.
Liz Stokes, Jon Pearce, Gabe Nardin, Paul Slater, Jess Kallen , and Tristan Deck. Heroes and veterans of the Spring 2024 mini tour.
I’ll leave you with a video I shot of Jess Kallen. This is my favourite song of theirs, my friend Callum show it to me well before I met Jess or toured with them. They were generous enough to add it to the set for this run and I feel so blessed. I think that this tune is just a masterpiece.
One final shout out before I let you go for the summer/(winter). Tristan and I are now published authors. We co-wrote a piece for a soon to be released book called Taste in Music: Eating on Tour with Indie Musicians. It has been a minute since this project began, around three years in fact, so it’s great to see this thing about to be released into the wild. If this sounds like your cup of tea I’ve added a link so you can check it out.
Ka kite anō
Ben xx