Viva Las Vegas rocks around the clock
The 20th anniversary of the festival brought traditionalism with a twist to The Orleans.
Biggest car show yet for Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender (Michael Quine/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-019.jpg)
The Reverend Horton Heat performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Dallas, Texas-based psychobilly trio is lead by singer/songwriter Jim Heath. (Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal) @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-001.jpg)
The Reverend Horton Heat performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Dallas, Texas-based psychobilly trio is lead by singer/songwriter Jim Heath. (Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal) @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-012.jpg)
Brenda Lee performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Nashville, Tennessee-based solo artist had 47 US chart hits in the 19060's, and is best know for her songs "I'm Sorry" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." (Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal) @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-017.jpg)
The Reverend Horton Heat performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Dallas, Texas-based psychobilly trio is lead by singer/songwriter Jim Heath. Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_vlv20_deke01.jpg)
Deke Dickerson joins Reverend Horton Heat on stage during the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender car show at the Orleans on Saturday, April 15, 2017. Michael Quine/Las Vegas Review-Journal @Vegas88s
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-007.jpg)
Los Straitjackets perform during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Nashville, Tennessee-based instrumental act closed out the car show Saturday night. (Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal) @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_vlv20_los_straitjackets01.jpg)
Eddie Angel of Los Straitjackets dishes out surftastic tones on his DiPinto Galaxie 4 guitar at the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender car show at the Orleans on Saturday, April 15, 2017. Michael Quine/Las Vegas Review-Journal @Vegas88s
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-015.jpg)
The Reverend Horton Heat performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Dallas, Texas-based psychobilly trio is lead by singer/songwriter Jim Heath. (Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal) @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-010.jpg)
Brenda Lee performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Nashville, Tennessee-based solo artist had 47 US chart hits in the 19060's, and is best know for her songs "I'm Sorry" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." (Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal) @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-016.jpg)
The Reverend Horton Heat performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Dallas, Texas-based psychobilly trio is lead by singer/songwriter Jim Heath. (Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal) @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-018.jpg)
The Reverend Horton Heat performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Dallas, Texas-based psychobilly trio is lead by singer/songwriter Jim Heath. Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-008.jpg)
Los Straitjackets perform during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Nashville, Tennessee-based instrumental act closed out the car show Saturday night. Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-009.jpg)
Brenda Lee performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Nashville, Tennessee-based solo artist had 47 US chart hits in the 19060's, and is best know for her songs "I'm Sorry" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-002.jpg)
The Reverend Horton Heat performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Dallas, Texas-based psychobilly trio is lead by singer/songwriter Jim Heath. Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-011.jpg)
Brenda Lee performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Nashville, Tennessee-based solo artist had 47 US chart hits in the 19060's, and is best know for her songs "I'm Sorry" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-003.jpg)
The Reverend Horton Heat performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Dallas, Texas-based psychobilly trio is lead by singer/songwriter Jim Heath. Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-005.jpg)
during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-006.jpg)
during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-004.jpg)
The Reverend Horton Heat performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Dallas, Texas-based psychobilly trio is lead by singer/songwriter Jim Heath. Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-013.jpg)
The Reverend Horton Heat performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Dallas, Texas-based psychobilly trio is lead by singer/songwriter Jim Heath. Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_vlv20_kershaw02.jpg)
Doug Kershaw performs at Deke & Dave’s Hillbilly Fest during Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender at the Orleans on Sunday, April 16, 2017. Michael Quine/Las Vegas Review-Journal @Vegas88s
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_sounding-041517-bh-020.jpg)
The Reverend Horton Heat performs during the 20th anniversary of the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans hotel-casino on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Las Vegas. The Dallas, Texas-based psychobilly trio is lead by singer/songwriter Jim Heath. Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto
![](https://www.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/8381484_web1_vlv20_kershaw01.jpg)
Doug Kershaw, right, spurs Deke Dickerson through his solo while Mitch Polzak accompanies at Deke & Dave’s Hillbilly Fest during Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender at the Orleans on Sunday, April 16, 2017. Michael Quine/Las Vegas Review-Journal @Vegas88s
Updated April 17, 2017 - 7:29 pm
First, it’s time to learn how to move properly, which involves imagining oneself as a large rodent.
“I want you to pretend that you’re a giant squirrel with a giant hazelnut,” the lady at the center of the dance floor instructs. “Crack that nut!” she then commands, enjoining the crowd to hike their knees in the air to do so.
On cue, an elderly couple begin pistoning their legs up, flanked by a tattooed 20-something with a shock of Smurf-blue hair and a young girl dressed like a 4-year-old Rosie the Riveter.
The crowd in this second-floor ballroom at The Orleans on Friday afternoon at the 20th anniversary of Viva Las Vegas rockabilly weekend, where “bopping” lessons were being held, may have spanned multiple generations, but they were united by a single sound: rock ’n’ roll in one of its earliest, most primal permutations, back before it was even a thing, really.
“They didn’t have a name for it back then,” Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Wanda Jackson said from the stage in the same ballroom Saturday night. “It wasn’t rockabilly. It wasn’t rock ’n’ roll yet.”
There were two basic types of crowds here: older folks for whom this was the music of their youth, the sound of their high school sock hops, not a subculture. And there was the younger set, the ladies with flowers in their hair and plenty more tattooed on their arms and legs, the fellas who wore black leather jackets and thick denim even in the Saturday afternoon heat of the outdoors car show. For them, rockabilly is a way of life, plenty of them getting into the music through a punk rock filter (hence the tats, piercings and Dwarves and Misfits T-shirts spotted in the crowd).
Together, they swarmed The Orleans, where the only thing harder to find than an empty parking space was a vacant bar stool this weekend.
This bridging of generation gaps took place both on stage and off.
On Saturday at the car show, Brenda Lee, a spry 72-year-old who notched her first hit, a cover of Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya (On the Bayou),” when she was but 10 years old in 1956, aired that song with elbow-throwing panache, still firmly in possession of a voice that seems much bigger than her 4-foot-9 frame would allow.
A couple of hours later in the main ballroom, an 18-year-old, Jack Sanchez, frontman for Johnny Devil & His Sins, also paid tribute to Williams, his voice sounding like Williams’ preserved in amber as his guitarist ripped leads from his knees.
The whole weekend was a mix of traditionalism and slight tweaks: Psychobilly favorite Reverend Horton Heat played a more straightforward rockabilly set than followers of the band may be accustomed to, mostly favoring smooth, fleet-fingered jams like a slick take on Ronnie Dawson’s “Rockin’ Dog” and a collaboration with Deke Dickerson on his “Mexicali Rose.” They also tore through a couple of their largely instrumental numbers, setting the stage for the band that followed, Los Straitjackets, who bobbed their luchador-masked heads in unison as they took Dick Dale’s six-string handiwork to the next exponent.
On Friday, SoCal’s Lonely Stars delivered a rockabilly take on Morrissey’s “Jack the Ripper.” The next evening, Jackson, her voice still pinprick-sharp, spun tales of where the music came from, sharing stories of hitting the road with Elvis on her first tour and making out with him at the drive-in.
“Yes, he was a good kisser,” she acknowledged before turning in a stirring rendition of “Heartbreak Hotel,” transforming The Orleans into just that for a minute or two.
Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @JasonBracelin on Twitter.
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