Local Concerts

One more of the nice things about living in Las Vegas is that just about every touring band or group will usually make at least one stop here. This provides the opportunity to see lots of groups that you would not see elsewhere. There is also a downside to this, as most promoters figure that people are coming to Las Vegas for a vacation, and therefore are willing to pay more for their entertainment the one week a year that they come out. This means that a concert ticket that might cost $35 in San Diego will probably go for $120 here in Vegas. And most concerts end up selling out within hours of initial ticket sales, mostly to scalpers or to casinos to give out as rewards to their high rollers. Of course, scalpers will then double these prices, which means that most people that live in Las Vegas will drive to LA or Phoenix to hear their favorite group. But if you are willing to pay you can enjoy anything locally.

One specific example of this is someone my wife wanted to see. She likes smooth jazz, and Diana Krall is a singer that she enjoys. Looking at my ITunes I see that we have four of her albums (sorry, CDs). Diana passes through Vegas once or twice a year. She usually plays at the small Railhead Lounge at Boulder Station, which is not close to the strip and more of a locals hotel and casino. Despite being off strip tickets to see Diana averaged $70. One week after appearing here she was at Yoshi’s in Oakland. Our son lives in Oakland, and we have been to Yoshi’s a few times, if you listen to Jazz you will be familiar with the name, as many live albums are recorded there. Yoshi’s concert room holds about half the number of people that fit in the local Railhead. Tickets to see Diana at Yoshi’s were $15. Almost worth flying out there to see the kids.

Anyway, what brought this on was the monthly concert listing in our Las Vegas Life magazine. These are some of the concerts listed for November: ZZ Top, Hanson (are they still around?), Average White Band, James Taylor, Maroon 5, Billy Joel, Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Patti Lupone. Those are the traveling groups, also appearing are our local Celine Dion, Barry Manilow, Wayne Newton and Sir Elton John.

I’d love to see ZZ, they are at the Hilton and tickets are around $80, not too bad.