Ben Folds, Night 3/Las Vegas

Or, Awake is the new sleep... (to steal Ben Lee's album title)

Or, the answers for those who have asked "How was Vegas?"

After last Friday's Ben Folds' show, I went straight to bed so I could get up around 7am on Saturday to do necessary chores before leaving the dogs alone overnight. Eric's plan was to stay up and finish a project for someone and then sleep until about 10am. We'd hit the road around Noon.

The best laid plans...yeah, yeah, yeah...Eric nearly collapsed due to lack of sleep and therefore came to bed. So, when he got up at 10, he still had to do the project. In the meantime, I'd attempted to go out around 9:30 and noticed I had a flat tire. So, I called Triple A who put on my spare and I headed over to the tire shop. The tire shop was swamped and I'd have to wait at least an hour and a half for them to even look at my tires. I didn't want to disturb Eric who was feverishly working, so a dear friend picked me up and brought me home. (Thanks James!)

Once the project was done, my car was recovered, and we were ready to leave, it was 4pm. Only running 4 hours late, which for us, isn't unheard of, but not good. We calculated that if we hit no traffic, we'd make it to the Ben Folds' show in Vegas in good time.

We totally forgot that OzzFest was taking place at the Glen Helen Pavilion in Devore, right along our route. It had started at 9:00 am, but apparently there was a lot of looky-loo traffic around the event. Traffic was awful until we passed that area, but we lost a lot of time. Luckily traffic cleared and we were able to go 90-100 mph the rest of the way, arriving at the will call desk 5 minutes before Ben Folds hit the stage.

The Joint
Hard Rock Hotel and Casino
Las Vegas, NV
08/20/05

We got to Will Call to pick up our tickets. We had a phone message earlier in the week from the ticketing company that our tickets had been returned to them, destroyed, so they'd have new ones for us at Will Call. Will Call had no record of us and no tickets in our name. Luckily, the show was not sold out and we bought new tickets. (Since that time, we've called the ticketing company and had the original money refunded).

It was somewhat of a bummer that we missed Ben Lee, having really come to like him over the past two shows. We found a good place to stand and Eric went over to the merch table. Ben Lee was hanging out there, so Eric bought his latest cd and had him sign it.

Ben Folds and his band sounded great. They did a mix of the previous two nights' set lists with "Carrying Cathy" thrown in as the one song we hadn't heard. The Vegas audience really seemed to be there primarily to see Rufus, who was performing after Ben. There was a group of people in front of us who just sat on the floor for all of Ben's set, which I found to be strange. At least they were quiet though. A guy in the back was heard saying "I have to keep talking louder because I can't hear myself over this band!" Well, fucking get out of the showroom dude! Even at the Wiltern in L.A., I was astounded by the number of people who just stand at the bar in the back and talk very loudly throughout an entire show instead of having the courtesy to go into the lobby (where there is also a bar).

Anyway, I got a cool red track jacket that says "Folds" on the front left. We left after the Ben Folds portion of the show, as did most of the people standing in the front 3 rows of the room.

We checked into Palace Station, where we'd booked a cheap ($76) room. It's a pretty gross hotel and casino from what we'd seen before. At check-in, the clerk told us we'd been upgraded to a mini-suite in their "tower." This is a newer section and is much nicer than the rooms we'd seen before. It was a very nice room, especially for the price, so we were satisfied. Seems they are doing a major remodel to stay competitive.

After dropping our stuff in the room, we headed over to Mandalay Bay to get some food at The Cafe at The Hotel, a posh, all-suite hotel connected to Mandalay Bay. It felt like a New York cafe. Very good food, fairly reasonable prices, open 24/7. We did some minimal gambling and were back in our room by 2:30 or 3.

We did get a later start than we wanted on Sunday, deciding to gamble a little and take some time to check out the newest hotel/casino, the Wynn. It's really nice and I had fun taking lots of photos there. I look forward to returning to the theater there to see "Avenue Q," which will be opening for an indefinite run in September.

I was pondering the saying that New York is the "City that Never Sleeps." I really think that applies more to Las Vegas, but since it's taken, I've come up with a couple of other slogans:

"Las Vegas: The City of Perpetual Construction"

I've been to Las Vegas an average of twice a year over the past 10 and there is always construction. It seems like now there is more than ever.

"Las Vegas: City of Imported Nature"

This greenery and waterfall are not naturally occurring desert nature. Neither are white tigers, dolphins, lions, or penguins which can all also be found in Vegas.

This entry ended up being much longer than intended. My head is hurting and I've taken lots of breaks while writing this, so it quite possibly make very little sense.