Wrong Side Of Vegas

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author PP date 12/09/08 venue Lades Kælder, Copenhagen, DEN

I'm having dinner around 8pm, when I decide to double-check the starting time of tonight's set at Lades Kaelder, where Gaffa's the demo of the month competition winners The Worn Out Virgins are meant to play together with fellow garage rockers Wrong Side of Vegas supporting. But it seems that bands, venues and promoters in Denmark are never able to set precise starting times for their arrangements as we've seen in so many shows before. The tour dates on The Worn Out Virgins' Myspace page state that the starting time is 18:30, Wrong Side Of Vegas' Myspace says 20:00, and the venue says 22:00 and refuse to answer their telephone when I'm desperately calling in to see if I'm already late. Nonetheless, I quickly swallow the rest of my dinner, hoping lady luck to be on my side so that the show wouldn't start before 21:00 at least. After I hurried my way through the city to the venue, arriving around quarter to nine, I find that the venue doesn't even open before 9pm! See this is why I'm not a fan of going to gigs alone when you don't know the exact start time of a set, because I ended up sitting around for over an hour before Wrong Side Of Vegas finally started their set. This also contributed to the fact that by 23:30, The Worn Out Virgins weren't even done setting up yet, so I decided to leave without checking them out considering how late it was already getting.

In the end, Wrong Side Of Vegas should've perhpas waited a bit longer than they did, because when they step on stage, I'm pretty much the only person standing anywhere in vicinity to the stage. Other people are merely chatting at their tables and drinking. As the set progresses, a few more people turn up but never enough to be referred to as a 'crowd', which is a shame considering the band actually put on a decent performance tonight. What's even stranger is that the bar's almost full when you go to the other side of the venue.. I guess these were either people who just stumbled into the bar for a drink, or they are all here for tonight's demo-of-the-month winners The Worn Out Virgins, although I'm leaning more on the former. Nonetheless, the sound's as nice and dirty as the location, with groovy rock n roll riffs blasting from the speakers. The band are all wearing pointy boots in the best cowboy/sleazy rock n roll manner, and combined with their overall semi-energetic stage appearance, their visible image suits well to the music as well.

Someone wise once said that you can truly judge a band's songs live, and that applies tonight as well. The set highlights "Dark Vegas", "Hey Mama" and "Don't Rip My Dead Heart" are miles above the rest tonight, and they were also the songs where the 'crowd' showed any sort of appreciation whatsoever, though that was merely limited to a few feet tapping, a couple of heads nodding slowly. The other songs seem to merely blend into a gray rock n roll cloud tonight (much like on the records), but at least a part of the reason is the lack of people present in front of the set. Playing in front of a largely empty space is not an easy job for any band, especially when you've got lots of parts where your set would gain lots from people singing along during the focus points of the song. As such, it's hard to pinpoint if Wrong Side Of Vegas did something wrong tonight or not, they simply came on stage, did their thing (for an impressive 40 minutes, if I may add), and left largely unnoticed by the people present tonight.

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