The Swank Bastards presents Basstravaganza IV at the Double Down, Wednesday Nov 23, 2016

It has become a Double Down tradition to begin the celebration of their anniversary weekend with the Swank Bastards and for the last 4 years that has meant Basstravaganza! Starting out of necessity when a regular bassist couldn't make it for the gig, Basstravaganza now consists of an equal amount of bass players for each year the DD is commemorating - hence 24 bassists this year!

As always, this is led by Bastards mainman/guitarist Jesse Del Quadro and now features four different drummers - all of whom currently play in the Bastards (Jesse plays a lot and no one other musician can keep up with him!) - along with the plethora of low range masters, who range from regular members of the Swanks, to friends from other bands to guitarists who switch to four strings for the evening to complete novices. It's all in the spirit of fun'n'celebrations and no one is supposed to take anything too seriously - hence the big finale with everyone on stage for a cover of Spinal Tap's "Big Bottom"!

The event was pretty damn jam-packed with players, friends'n'fans, all of whom were diggin' on the surfy vibes sent up by Jesse and whatever combination of Bastards he came up with. Plenty of surf standards, some instro punk covers, some Black Sabbath (a regular staple of Bastards shows) and even some originals!

A fun, happy vibe all around! Thanks to Jesse for bringing so many friends together for this and thank you to the Double Down for 24 years of Las Vegas punk rock!

(I hope that I got pix of everyone - apologies if I missed anyone and if any of the photos suck.)