The Golden Gods / The Fixers - the Dive Bar, Las Vegas July 14, 2007

The Dive Bar is fast becoming our favorite local place to see music, especially since the Celebrity Theater no longer seems to be booking live music. This truly is a dive bar - which is not a detriment in our eyes! - but is has a surprisingly good sound system, good drink prices, plenty of parking, a/c that works, and nice employees. They’ve been on a roll booking good bands, so we’re hoping that they keep it up!

Unfortunately, one problem in Vegas is finding out band orders and set times, so when we arrived, we discovered that we had yet again missed local faves, the Black Jets. We did see Suckerstar, and all-female combo which featured members of the Blair Bitch Project and a kick-ass lead guitarist who even used a voice-box on her guitar! After them was the Neon Nights, who were all great players, but no real songs and whose singer screamed throughout the set instead of singing anything. Just not my style.

Then it was time for the Golden Gods! I picked up their CD on a whim and loved it and was disappointed to find out that they had already broken up by the time I bought it. So, I was thrilled to find out that they were playing Las Vegas, of all places, for a couple of reunion shows (they played on Friday night, as well, but I couldn’t get out both nights). Their hair was all much shorter than on the record and they had some technical problems right at the start of the set, but they dressed like they raided my closet circa 1975 or so and they still rocked like wildmen!

Simon Scott has one of the best r’n’r voices I have heard in years and he can play terrific licks on his SG while wailing away! A super frontman! “Dynamite” Dan Trilk refused to wear his trademark fur coat since it was probably still over 100 degrees out when they went on, but he made up for it with his excellent bass playing, backup vocals and mutton chops and mustache! Drummer Richard Shelton Davis was sporting a bleach blond buzz cut instead of his flowing brown locks, yet his bashed the hell out of his drums and cowbell and added more great backing vocals.

These cats played most, if not all of “The Thorny Crown of R’n’R” (sorry – I was too busy drinkin’ and rockin’ to take notes!) and put on a fabulous show! Hopefully, they will all continue to do some musical project cuz there’s a helluva lotta talent in these 3 gents. (and they all seemed like nice guys, too!)

I didn’t know how anyone would follow the Gods, but Humble Pie tribute band, the Fixers managed to do so by being a wild party band! Made up of members of the Supersuckers, Fastbacks, and Presidents of the United States (among others), these characters actually had the licks needed to cover HP. No one could belt ‘em out quite like Steve Marriot (but who could?), but they certainly could rock!

They did the “hits” – “30 Days in the Hole”, “Four Day Creep”, “The Fixer” (of course!) and “I Don’t Need No Doctor”, as well as many more and even threw in a Mountain song (“Never In My Life”) just cuz!

Obviously, the Fixers are pals of the GG’s, as most of the Fixers’ set had members of the Gods on stage with them! The night turned into a massive party fueled by alcohol and great r’n’r! It reminded me of some of the wilder nights at LA’s Al’s Bar, which is high praise indeed!

The Gods may be gone, but it is apparent that you can never tell where or when they will resurrect themselves! (Actually, they announced that they will be playing in San Francisco this coming friday!) In the meantime, if you want to have a r’n’r party, go see the Fixers!

Check out the Fixers My Space page here and the Golden Gods My Space page here and the Dive Bar My Space page here.