Viva Las Vegas photos - part one

I've got loads of photos from my recent trip to Las Vegas so I'm going to put a few of them on the blog over the coming days, beginning with music acts from the first couple of days of Viva Las Vegas.
Here are the Royal Rhythmaires, a Texas rockabilly band with a female singer, Jai Malano, who has a really great voice in the style of Lavern Baker or even a female Little Richard. A brilliant start.

Also impressive were the country flavoured Carmen Lee and the Tomorrow River Two, who featured quite a few original numbers.

Morry Sochat and the Special 20s were another name new to me, who were pretty good on a set which included Rock This Joint, Shake Your Hips and Pine Box.

Of rather less interest were the Tequila Worms, a Chicano surf guitar band who spent their set looking at their feet and playing some quite predictable instrumentals.

UK rockabilly singer Jamie 'Bubba J' Faulkner gave a good account of himself both vocally and personality-wise, backed by, among others, fellow Brit Carl 'Sonny' Leyland (see photo below) who was  brilliant as the keyboard player with various acts during the weekend.

Most exciting act of day one were the San Francisco band Stompy Jones who really made the place swing with their excellent singer and horn section and rocking approach.

Another act on day one, but one that didn't do much for me, was a band called Hula Girls, which comprised a steel guitarist and, yes, a couple of hula girls. Adequate but nothing special.

The biggest crowd of the evening gathered for the glamorous redhead Kim Lenz and the Jaguars, who promoted her new album Follow Me. Very good, both visually and musically.

Day two was taken up largely by a fashion show mand an excellent two hour Burlesque Showcase (of which more later) and I only got to see a handful of acts, the best of whom were the excellent California doowop group Lil Mo and the Dynaflos.

Introduced as a 'Japanese superstar', the dimunitive Conny was lively and bubbly and showed she has a fair voice on numbers such as Bad Motorcycle, Teenage Boogie and Lovestruck, with help from Lil Mo and co on some numbers.

The last act I saw on day two was up and coming Liverpool rockabilly band Furious, who were OK I thought, but nothing to write home about.

 Photos by Nick Cobban.