Nashville Pussy, CracKerman, Beau Hodges at the Dive Bar Las Vegas, Saturday Dec 19, 2015

It's been a year and a half now since the last time Nashville Pussy made an appearance at the Dive Bar but this time instead of a Thursday night, they came through at the end of their tour on a Saturday, so I had to make the effort to get out to support this terrific band at this cool club. It certainly helped that there were only 3 bands on the bills, so it was easy to stay for the whole show and still get home at a reasonable time.

The Dive Bar continues to make improvements and now the stage is even a bit bigger than the last time I was there, they had some real lights for the bands and now they are serving food, as well! This place just keeps getting better!

Opening the evening was Beau Hodges, this time simply with a guitar player that he has worked with for many years but had to move out of town recently, a gentlemen known only as Hoz. I've seen Beau in many different band permutations (and even on his own with an acoustic guitar) and his powerful voice and strong songs carry through no matter how they are presented and tonight Hoz added some great guitar work with some fine slide playing. A bit low key for an opener for Nashville Pussy, but it was a set filled with good ol' southern rock songs which made it fitting, in a way.

Up next was CracKerman, a punk rock trio with painted faces, tie-dyed t-shirt, hair a-flyin', some Nirvana/grunge influences, a cover of Jim Carroll's "People Who Died" and a bit of destruction at the end, with ceiling tiles being demolished along with the bass - in a mock Star Wars-ian battle - and the guitar stuck in the wall by its head stock!


And then the main event, the mighty Nashville Pussy. Besides singer guitarist Blaine (from Nine Pound Hammer) and guitar phenomenon Ruyter, the band still has bassist Bonnie Buitrago and this time there was a drummer sitting in for Jeremy (who is still listed on their Facebook page, so I'm assuming he is still "officially" still in the group) whose name I could not catch.

They came out kickin' with a number of newer songs that I wasn't always familiar with (I guess I need to catch up on their releases) but were high-energy rockers, as you would expect. There were a bit more vocal harmonies that I have heard before and some great guitar harmony leads between Ruyter and Blaine. Ruyter is still a smokin' guitarist and still sexy as hell, although she doesn't strip down to her underwear like she used to - I guess cuz she's proven she doesn't need to any more.

Newer songs like "I'm So High", "Hillbilly Blues", "Hatin' Whiskey", "Gimme More", "Everybody's Fault But Mine" and "Hate to See Me Go" (with a drum solo!) were mixed in with "oldies" like "Shoot First and Run Like Hell", "Go To Hell", "Struttin' Cock", Go Motherfucker Go" and the closer "Fried Chicken and Coffee".

Ruyter still riffs like a madwoman all night - love the fact that her guitar only has one pickup and all of the knobs have been removed other than the volume knob, cuz she just don't need any fancy shit - Blaine screams'n'shouts as strong as ever while providing rockin' rhythm'n'leads, while the bass'n'drums hold down the fort. Blaine dances maniacally at one point before pouring a beer into his hat and drinking out of it, while a naked man slammed through the audience and Ruyter continues to demolish any chance of an encore by ripping the strings off of her guitar at the end of the set.

Another great night of wild'n'wooly rock'n'roll at the Dive Bar! Cool night all around! Sorry for the excessive amount of pix - I couldn't decide which ones I liked best!