Reggae & Phil's Wedding

We got to hang with the Reggae & Phil one more time after I finished work, as they came to our place for a quick dinner before we dropped them off at the Strip so they could go and see Love. I’ve had such a great week with them here, actually 2 weeks if you count the time with everyone in Hawaii as well. Tomorrow they continue on their US trip, while I have to work on keeping this quiet for 3 months until they have their Australian wedding. I think I’ll make it ?!?!

Reggae & Phil's Wedding

Still working as the newlyweds get to spend their first day together celebrating Phil’s birthday. Again we meet up when I’ve finished work and the 6 of us head out to Joe’s Stone Crab for dinner. Again, a great meal with some good company. And no trip to Vegas is complete until drinks have been had at the Peppermill. The pictures below say it all I think. Tonight was our farewell to the Saffas, as they head back to Houston in the morning.

Us In The Car

Us @ The Peppermill

Reggae & Phil's Wedding

Again I had to work today, so all was left for preparation for the big night.  Reggae & Phil get married at the Graceland Wedding Chapel. The girls were spoiled by a hairdresser & make-up artist, while the boys …well just got ready when they had to.

Gretchen, Reggae & A @ Aria

Me & A @ Aria

Regs & Her Bridesmaids

Reggae On Her Way To The Chapel

Saffa & I escorted Reggae to the Chapel and in Vegas style we were up and done in 20 minutes. Elvis walked her down the short isle to her nervous husband in waiting. Elvis then proceeded to perform a great, fun ceremony and before we knew it Reggae & Phil were Happily Ever Aftered.

Me, A, Gretchen & Saffa

Phil & Reggae @ Graceland Wedding Chapel

After the ceremony, the Reggae & Phil had hired a photographer who had a limo driver take us to different parts of the city for 2 hours for the wedding photos. We went to the Vegas sign, Mandalay Bay, Bellagio & Caesars Palace before heading to Firefly at The Plaza for the reception dinner.  Definitely a fun wedding and a great night had by all.

Regs & Her Boys

KISS and Reggae & Phil

Phil & Reggae & Cake @ Firefly

Reggae & Phil's Wedding

I had to work today so I had Phil & Regs drive me to work so they could have my car and have the day to do as they please. Also Phil is moving into Aria today - to keep away from his bride the night before the wedding. He will be joined there by his mate, Zu, who will partake it the events as well. Also Saffa and Gretchen arrive into Vegas this afternoon to complete the party.

After work we all met at Aria to let them marvel at where I work, and have a drink before keeping it low key and having dinner at the Hookah Lounge - a fave from Reggae's last visit. We escort the bride home afterwards and the boys headed back for a bit of fun on the casino floor.

Me, Zu, Regs, Phil, A, Gretchen & Saffa @ Aria

Reggae & Phil's Wedding

A mere 3 days after getting back from Hawaii we are blessed by the incoming Reggae & Phil, who are doing a few week tour through the US (LA, Vegas, Chicago, NY, Amish Country, Memphis, Nashville and Honolulu). But this stop is special as it includes a secret wedding that only parents and the 5 guests (Me, A, Saffa, Gretchen & Zu) know about.

I picked the kids up from the airport and we made the trip directly to get the Marriage Licence from Clark County Courthouse before going to Rent a Dress & Tux to get the kids outfitted for Friday. While alterations were made we headed over to the Hard Rock Hotel for lunch at Mr Luckys.

 

Reggae & Phil getting their Marriage Licence

10 days of travelling and the upcoming fun ahead and Phil & Regs were happy for a night in and a home cooked meal. Fine by us too.

Barnesy & Jill's Wedding

The morning after was spent at Brunch back at the Westin. It was fun to relive the previous nights' funny parts and everyone's great memories over a Bloody Mary.

Again afterwards we spent the afternoon dividing time between the pool and the beach. Such a hard life!

Later that evening the Joyners, Creans, Besters-To-Be and the us joined forces and headed down to the Hyatt for the Luau. I had a blast - great company (never know when we are all going to get together again), good food, the outdoors (we didn't even budge when it started raining in the middle of dinner) and decent entertainment. However us oldies were straight back to the hotel afterwards too exhausted to go on.

Me & The Creans @ The Hyatt Luau

A and I got up early on our last morning to walk along the beach and get a quick swim in before we head back to reality. Got a taxi back to the airport with the Creans and spent the flight back reflecting on how stoked we were to get the opportunity to make our first trip to Hawaii such a special one. And how can we get back quickly?

Barnesy & Jill's Monaghan Wedding

Plenty of relaxing time around the pool and at the beach before we have to get ready for the evening festivities. It is so good to sit in the sun and not worry about anything - work, cell phones, life etc. You just have to not get sunburned.

We caught the early shuttle for the 20 minute ride up to the Ritz, where the wedding is held outside down by the ocean. Just ridiculously beautiful! We waited a while as a storm passed through - just enough to make the wedding party nervous. But the simple ceremony had all the elements of beauty. The waves in the background, a small group of close friends and family, the setting sun and the happy couple. Everyone was so happy it all went well for Greg & Jill.

Regs, Phil, KTel, Creany, A & I @ The Ritz

Greg, Mick & Anthony at the ready

Jill & Greg married in paradise

A & I after the wedding

The evening then moved back into the hotel where the open reception room, looking over the golf course and the coast, hosted the festivities in style. When the wedding party arrived - the party started. A great meal followed by all the usual wedding frivolities topped off a great day for everyone, especially Greg & Jill.  A and I are definitely blessed to have such great friends and a good life.

A, Phil, Suzanne & KTel @ The Reception

Barnes, Me, Crean, Regs & JJ @ The Reception

Barnesy & Jill's Monaghan Wedding

We made it! We only get 3 nights but is was the wedding I had to get to. Barnesy and Jill were finally getting married and picked a spot between both families to do so. The beautiful island of Maui.  I shuffled some days off work around so that A & I could make the journey for the wedding and catch up with some friends.

After an early start our flights to Maui via San Francisco seemed effortless and by 12pm local time, we were ready to find friends and maybe get in some pool time. We ran into most of the crew while having lunch at a bar in our hotel, The Westin Ocean Villas, so the festivities began.

One of my missions for the trip is to get into the ocean every day we are here, and after lunch I started that tradition - switching out between the Pacific and the pool. When we finally got settled into our room, we had little time before getting on the bus to Lahaina to go an a pre-wedding cruise. Wow! This is the life. 3 hours just cruising, with great people, enjoying the good weather and celebrating the love of 2 friends. Doesn't get much better than that.

Creany, Barnes & I cruising Maui

The Bride & Groom

We kicked on for a little while at a local pub, but it had been a long day for A and I so we left before the shenanigans got out of hand.

The Creantels

Philby, Barnes & Regs

The Offspring & Terrible Things @ The New Joint

13 years. Wow! That's a long time since seeing The Offspring. It was the Big Day Out in 1997 that I last saw The Offspring. And from vague memory it was a good show, but not as wild as the first show I saw at Selina's (where people were stage diving off the bar).

The night started with a young band from Pennsylvania, Terrible Things. Not sure how they got on this tour. Their music didn't really suit The Offspring's fans, and certainly did not set the world on fire.

The New Joint was not even half full when The Offspring came on (maybe everyone was at the MGM seeing Sting). This didn't stop them, declaring they didn't have a new album to push, the band spent the next hour and a half pumping out the hits. The only downside to the show was a song played solo on the piano (Gone Away) - not the way you want to hear it.

Overall a good show, but not the right venue. I'm still not sold on the New Joint. It seems to be a big, cavernous space and so far only No Doubt has been able to fill it properly.

The Crap Facts:

This is my 296th concert.

This is my 4th concert at The New Joint.

This is my 93rd concert in Las Vegas.

This is my 93rd concert in Nevada.

This is my 104th concert in the USA.

Terrible Things are the 367th band I've seen.
This is my 4th Offspring concert.

Henry Rollins @ Wasted Space

After being bedridden for a week, today saw an improvement in A. But today I also found out how sick she was. She passed on seeing Henry Rollins. Definitely not a good sign. She was well enough to let me go and so I met up with the Erik & Shelly and Dave at the Pink Taco before we headed into Wasted Space to see (my 7th) Henry's Spoken Word Performance.

This is by far the best venue I have seem Henry in. Small, intimate and not a crowd that could easily get to a bar, get drunk and try and ruin it for everyone (though there were some sound glitches at the start which threatened to shorten the show).

Henry proceeded to talk for 2 3/4 hours about anything and everything. Ann Coulter. Visiting Australia. Going to the Nelson Mandela Library in South Africa. Meeting Kurt Sutter (Sons Of Anarchy). Judging on Ru Paul's Drag Races. And much more.

As always he was hilarious and opinionated, but never did it fell like you wanted it to end. Again it is hard to review a comedian / spoken word artist, because you can't retell the story - you just have to be there. Can't wait to see show number 8.

The Crap Facts:

This is my 295th concert.

This is my 3rd concert at Wasted Space.

This is my 92nd concert in Las Vegas.

This is my 92nd concert in Nevada.

This is my 103rd concert in the USA.

This is my 7th Henry Rollins concert.

Cage The Elephant & 22-20's @ Wasted Space

I like to see bands that friends say are great. I love it when these bands blow you away, which is the case of Cage The Elephant.

Erik & Shelly invited me to see this band at Wasted Space, a great little (400 people) venue inside the Hard Rock Hotel, which, except for the wanky VIP section is a fantastic venue to see bands.

We walked in at 10pm to a near full house, already, with England's 22-20s just starting their set. They had a good sound and kept the audience's attention, which is no easy task in Las Vegas. I knew nothing of their music but liked what I saw, especially the song Shake, Shiver & Moan.

22-20's cleared their gear off and in no time the stage was set for Cage The Elephant. Again all I knew of them was from the 2 listens to the Live At Grimeys EP that I bought that morning (man it was good to be in a record store again - thanks Zia Records). But what I heard, I liked. Little was I to know.

To a relatively mild applause from a now packed room, maybe from a lack of recognition, the band strolled on and prepped to go. From the very first note, Cage The Elephant were on fire. HOLY SHIT! All 5 band members have such an enthusiasm for their music, and it shows in their live performance. It is energy plus for the next hour. This vibe is best shown through vocalist Matt Schultz. His energy, passion and movement makes him the greatest front man since Iggy Pop (in my opinion). He did not stop for a blistering hour. And while his interaction with crowd was minimal (except for his sad $1 loss in Vegas and a couple of stage dives), he had them in the palm of his hand. There was not a moment in the set that Cage The Elephant wasn't racing at 100 miles an hour. In the end Cage The Elephant finished to thunderous applause - heightened by Shultz's one last stage dive and stand in the crowd. Many a people had been converted by the most energetically charged band I've seen in the last few years (The Hold Steady & Gogol Bordello excepted). It is now time for me to find more of their music and pray that they return to Vegas soon - preferably before they get as huge as they deserve to be.

Thanks to Erik & Shelley. You take me to this after we dragged you to an ordinary Arctic Monkeys show and I draw my usual freak magnet crowd. I definitely owe you one.

The Crap Facts:

This is my 294th concert.

This is my 2nd concert at Wasted Space.

This is my 91st concert in Las Vegas.

This is my 91st concert in Nevada.

This is my 102nd concert in the USA.

The 22-20's are the 365th band I've seen.
Cage The Elephant are the 366th band I've seen

Star Wars In Concert @ Orleans Arena

Some culture for us tonight - so I kept trying to sell it to A. A symphony orchestra, playing in their tuxedos, enchanting an audience of dedicated......Star Wars lovers. With C3PO (Anthony Daniels) doing the commentary. What more could you want? Ummm how about free tickets. Hooray!!! Through ABH's work we had box seats for the show and showed up with the Hills and Hogie.

From high up we didn't have the best view of the huge screen that was playing the different movies' footage while the orchestra played. It was a few songs in before the feed to the TVs in the box worked and added the visual to the audio.

The show took us through all 6 of the Star Wars movies, with the highlights being the original score, obviously, and at the start of Darth Vader's theme, where a bunch of about 20 friends sitting together lit their red light-sabers.

What tonight also taught me was that I am not the huge Star Wars fan as I thought I was. Yeah I've seen the original movie at least 300 times and have 5 t-shirts, but the rest of the crowd were over the top. There was hardly a character not represented in people dressing up. (my fave was the father / son Obi Wan Kenobi team). We also shared the box with someone in full Darth Vader outfit, which was a hit with everyone during intermission - and he was a good sport about it all.

She won't admit, but A had a fun night, as did I. Star Wars is the greatest movie ever, as far as I am concerned. But 33 years after it was made, it is amazing the cultural impact that it still has on the world. The amount of people here tonight that weren't even born when the 1st trilogy came out at the movies speaks volumes for the legacy of these great films.

Sage & Viva Elvis @ Aria

For our Wedding Anniversary A and I had a fantastic night staying at Aria (thank the lord for free stuff).

We checked into the hotel mid afternoon and, while our room was beautiful, we preferred to lazily spend our afternoon by the pool. Within hours we were both completely relaxed.

We chose Sage for dinner, as it is the best restaurant in Aria to offer A vegetarian options. And, boy did we make the right choice. The food here is amazing. I had a lobster ravioli (which was one of the most delicious foods I'd ever tasted) as well as the Kobe flank steak. This beautiful dining room was the perfect setting for our anniversary dinner. Again our server was fantastic and I feel that in the space of five hours since we had checked in, we had settled into our overnight staycation quite nicely. We had a quick drink at American Fish after dinner and before we went into Viva Elvis.

I was a little hesitant to see Viva Elvis again. I had seen it before we opened the hotel, and they needed to work through some kinks. Well they did! And this is has improved the show infinitely. We had a blast! Not as Cirque-y as their other shows, Viva Elvis is a fitting musical tribute to the King. It was not just us who thought so. The whole audience was having a great time, and the standing ovation at the end was well deserved.

Happy Anniversary Wifecicle. Hope you had a great night!

Mum & Craig's Visit

On Tuesday Mom, Mum and I had breakfast at the Peppermill before picking Craig up from the airport. I love this place. It has all the old Vegas tackiness and huge portions of food.  That was it for the day.

On Wednesday, Mum, Craig and I dropped Lynn off early in the morning for her return to Charlotte. We then spent the rest of the day doing stuff around town on Mum and Craig's last full day in the US. 

We started at the Gun Store where Craig and I did some sharp shooting. It's amazing that we foreigners love to come here, seeing as though guns are banned at home. Afterwards we drove down to the Silverton Casino and had lunch inside the Sundance Cafe. Once we were done with lunch, we sent Craig into heaven - the Bass Pro Shop. All your fishing, boating and hunting needs under one roof. Actually, even I was impressed. This place was huge! And could almost lead to a new hobby (except we're in the middle of the desert, where it is stinking hot all summer long). We drove home via the Red Rock area so they could see another side of this town. For our last meal we went to Aria, as I had a comp meal at American Fish. This was much better than I thought it would be. I'm not a huge seafood eater (so I had a steak) but everyone enjoyed their meals. And the service was impeccable with a great, open atmosphere.

On their last day I had to work, but got to spend some of the afternoon with them before taking them out to the airport. I'm pretty sure they enjoyed staying with us, I know A and I loved having them here. I just hope Mum is kicking herself for waiting 10 years to come and see us, and will not wait so long to do it again.

Mum & Craig's Visit

Early on Monday, Craig flew to California for the night to visit some friends. A and I worked, so who knows what the mums spent the day talking about! In the evening the four of us went to Nora's Wine Bar for dinner. As usual a great meal had at this fabulous restaurant.