The Swamp Gospel, the Sin Eaters, the Rhyolite Sound at the Double Down, Saturday May 11, 2019

The Swamp Gospel will play at the Double Down every month or two and there are times, like this one, where we will set up the whole night and stack the evening with high quality bands. Regrettably, a number of other gigs popped up for this same evening, which meant that the LV scene was split between a number of venues.

As usual, the Gospel opened the evening and did our best to energize the sparse "crowd". Definitely not one of our best revivals, but we appreciated our friends who did show up and it was great to have Louie the Letch add his vocal prowess to our take on the Sonics' "Strychnine"!

(Thank you to Nikki for coming out and for the photos, Louie for joining in on "Strychnine" and hanging out and Christy and Jw for being part of the revival, despite everything else going on that night!)

The Sin Eaters - essentially a revamped version of the Lucky Cheats - made a rare appearance and tore up the DD with their excellent brand of rockin' blues'n'roll. Their unique'n'dynamic takes on classics like "Do the Do", "You Don't Love Me", "King Bee", "Catfish",  "Hip Shake", "Skinny Woman" and more got the jaded DD patrons up'n'dancin''n'jumpin'n'jivin'! Always great to see these cats in person - Larry Reha is a terrific skin basher who knows how to really use dynamics to build a song, Davis swings on the stand-up, Jeffrey wails the harp and Wade is absolutely one of my favorite guitarists in town. Hopefully, they will start playing again more often, as I don't get a chance to see them nearly as often as I would like.

Vegas' own old school honky-tonkers, the Rhyolite Sound, closed out the night with a set of true country music, which got some real dancers out on the floor to cut a rug. Led by Larry and Erik (guitars and vocals) they also share bassist Chris Davis with the Sin Eaters, although he is now keepin' the low end on an electric instead of his trademark stand-up in this combo. Drummer AJ has been doin' a great job of keepin' time with them for a while now and there's a new cat smokin' on lead guitar, whose name I did not manage to get, but who really added some fine licks to the tunes. Unfortunately, the late hour and the number of drinks I consumed keep me from keeping any real notes, but I believe their set is now mostly high quality originals and even hard core C&W fans shouldn't miss the covers! Another Vegas combo that has talent to spare and is currently tearing up the trad country scene!

Thank you to Ian and the DD for another night of fine music!