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Last night, I decided to make my second trip to Gilley’s since it opened two months ago at Treasure Island.  I had to meet someone at the Mirage later in the night, and I figured the country bar would be a good place to kill some time since I was running about an hour ahead of schedule.

I had my ride drop me off in front of the Mirage, and I then headed north and tried to enter Gilley’s from the outside.

I soon realized the error of my ways.

To call the pedestrian situation in front of TI a “logistical nightmare” would be kind.  Calling it a clusterf**k would denigrate the beautiful act of making love to clusters.  Frankly, I don’t know what to call the situation other than a “complete and unadulterated mess”.

If you try to reach Gilley’s by walking north from the most populated portion of The Strip, you will quickly realize what a salmon feels like when it is trying to swim upstream.  At night, the TI plankbridge flows one-way, and that way is south.  This doesn’t sound like it should be a big deal, but as you can see from the photos … it is.  Gilley’s is segregated from all northbound pedestrian traffic by a rope, and this results in a dense, concentrated mosh of people directly in front of the bar which makes external entry the most monumental pain in the ass imaginable.  Yes, yes, that’s what she said.

After walking against the grain for 5 minutes, and smashing head-first into numerous people, I hopped over the rope and entered Gilley’s from the casino.

When I finally got inside, things finally mellowed out.

Guys in cowboy hats were standing around drinking beers, random tourists were warbling out karaoke tunes, and of course, a mechanical bull was tossing people around like ragdolls.  Strangely, there was also a lady inside with her child in-tow … cue Jeff Foxworthy “you might be a redneck” joke.

Anyway, I ordered a light beer, walked around, and took in the scenery.  I didn’t know what I was looking for in particular, but I will say this, watching people get tossed from a mechanical bull is a great way to make the time fly.

At one point, I pulled out my camera to record the action, and I captured one guy getting thrown feet-over-head into the side barrier:

That had to hurt.  At least a little bit.

I’ve ridden a mechanical bull once in my life, and that was in Mexico when I was far younger.  I was thrown several times, but I kept getting back on because I had no problem taking the abuse.  These days, however, at 41 years old, 6’3″ and 190lbs, I assume that being thrown from a bull in such a manner would be little more than suicide.  For both myself and the robobull.

After watching the bull riders get hammered, I turned my attention to the karaoke stage.

Now, I took this second video with my EVO, and I have to be brutally honest and concede a major point — The EVO video camera is almost useless indoors in dim light.  It’s not completely useless, but it’s pretty damn close.  The irony is that during the daytime, the EVO camcorder is remarkably good.  I would go so far as to call it excellent.

The difference between the camera at night and during the day, however, is like, uh … night and day.  It’s hard to believe that a great camera can go to complete shit simply by moving indoors.  Inexplicably, when the video goes to hell, the audio follows suit.  I’m not sure if the compression scheme is increased under stress or what, but it’s pretty bad.

That being said, I did the best I could to capture this guy doing a karaoke rendition of “Cowboy” by Kid Rock, but you are going to have to make judicious use of your imagination to hear the words:

I did find it admirable that the gentleman knew enough of the song to go off-script and sing “paint his wife white” and “my only words of wisdom are just suck my dick”.  Oddly enough, the guy didn’t seem all that familiar with the rest of the lyrics, but he shouted those two lines perfectly.  At least the man has priorities.

In general, Karaoke makes my ears bleed, but I’m warming up to it as I age.  You have to give props to people who get in front of an audience and belt out tunes when they are clearly aware that they cannot sing.  It’s for this reason that I have some respect for Ke$ha.

In any event, I spent a solid hour talking to some of the tourists at the bar, getting my drink on, and just generally enjoying the atmosphere.  I did not, however, ride the bull or sing to the crowd.  I eventually got a text message that my party had arrived, and my time in Gilley’s was up.  I grabbed a few more quick shots and headed into the abyss of Treasure Island on my way to the Mirage tram.

Even though it’s not a place that fits my personality perfectly, I can see myself using Gilley’s as a casual hangout more often in the coming years.  I’m not a huge fan of the faux-cowboy thing, but the pretense factor is low, douchebags are almost non-existent, and the waitresses were quite attractive and personable.  I give it a solid B+.

The genius urban planning in front of Treasure Island, however, receives a massive fail.

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