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Another weekend has come and gone, and once again, I spent most of it at the “Summer of the ’70s” on Fremont Street in Downtown Las Vegas.

This weekend, I had kind of a special reason for dividing my time in such a unilateral manner.  A KISS Tribute band was playing two nights consecutively, and I wanted to catch at least some of their performance on both nights.

I still remember almost every moment of the KISS revolution from when I was but a child.  If you were in elementary school from roughly 1974-1979, you were likely saturated with KISS music and imagery every day in the hallways.

Every red-blooded boy owned at least Destroyer and Dynasty, and KISS lunchboxes and posters were fairly common.  I even remember this one kid who would play air guitar during lunch, stick packets of ketchup in his mouth and bite down on them … ejecting “blood” from his mouth a/la Gene Simmons.  I later saw a similar scene play out in a retro movie about the band.  It just goes to show you that art truly does imitate life.

Even though I was only about 10 years old during their peak, thus ensuring I would never see the original band live, I did indeed have their records.  As a budding pee-wee guitar player with a shitty acoustic, I remember teaching myself to play along with “Hard Luck Woman”.  It reminded me of another song I had learned to play, “Maggie May” by Rod Stewart.

Lest you laugh at some of the music I played in my tender years, I assure you that it gets worse.

When I was 9 years old, I joined a band of high school kids on the condition that I would learn to play the drums.  They already had a guitar player, and this was the only un-manned instrumental opening.  At that time, there just were not any bands my own age to play with, and I was so desperate to play anything that I pieced together a borrowed kit.  One enterprising young man stole equipment from local schools, resold it very cheap, and actually financed it to those of sparse means (he allowed weekly payments).  I am not kidding.

In retrospect, I suppose I was complicit in the fencing of stolen goods by buying them, but I was frigging nine.  Who in the hell gives you credit when you’re nine?  I mean, besides Countrywide Financial circa-2006.

Anyway, I accepted the offer (the alternative was playing in my room to no one), and I learned the drums by playing along to one song over and over and over.  That song was:

“Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac

I thought I was Keith F’ing Moon banging out this adult contemporary classic.

So, what were the fruits of my Fleetwood Mac drumming labor?

One gig in a High School auditorium.

Woo-Hoo.

I believe our main problem was that our guitar player could not play the guitar, and our bass player could not play the bass.

God bless punk which would soon make this all irrelevant.

Looking back, the 1970′s was a weird decade, but creatively, it was way better than the autotune/emo 2000′s.  I’m not trying to be one of those “things were better in my day” guys, but seriously, have you seen some of the new acts?

For instance, these guys opened the Surrender nightclub at the Encore two weeks ago:

What … what … what the HELL was that?

The lyrics to the first song are, and I quote:

“Shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots”

Look, I say this with all sincerity: The world was a far better place when most musicians were on heroin.

One day, I hope all of the 20-something autotuners put down the designer booze, flush the ecstacy down the toilet, pull their goddamn pants up, and get a proper dope habit.  They might start making something interesting.  I have to question the creativity of anyone who has not spent at least a few years strung out.  The current generation of artists proves my theory.

I digress.

Even though I was but a youngster for the duration of the 1970′s, I was pretty immersed in everything going on around me, and KISS was pretty big. Soon thereafter, the Teen Idles, Trouble Funk, and Bad Brains redefined the sound of the entire DC area, but if you are in your 40′s or 50′s, deep down, there’s a little bit of KISS in all of you.

Assuming you have a soul.

In any event, I wanted to go to Fremont Street to see pseudo-KISS, and I did.  The band was exceptional, as are pretty much all Fremont tribute bands.

While spending time Downtown this weekend, it once again dawned on me why it is now my favorite place in the city.  It is just flat out more entertaining.

These days, Downtown IS the identity of Las Vegas.  While The Strip sheds its uniqueness and desperately tries to emulate South Beach, Fremont Street remains the true center and character of that which most people equate with “Las Vegas”.  It’s the experience you expect to have while you are hopping in the car or getting on the plane.  From one end of the canopy to the other, everywhere you look, there is just “stuff” going on.  It’s crowded, it’s busy, and it bombards the senses with sights, sounds, and smells (some good, some not so good).

Live bands, sidewalk bars, overhead light shows, ladies dancing on tables, street performers, weed wafting through the air … Fremont Street is the world’s largest block party.  During the summer, it’s a 4 month Mardi Gras.  Honestly, I don’t understand how tourists could not like the place.  If you are going to go somewhere for a gambling getaway, and you want to actually enjoy yourself with very little pretense, I don’t know that you could do any better.  At least not in the United States.

The haters are always pissing and moaning that Downtown is dirty and full of bums, but these days, that description applies more to The Strip.  The Boulevard now sports omnipresent panhandlers, overfilling trash cans, porn slappers, escort cards litering the streets, club hustlers, vacant lots, construction skeletons, dark corners, and gangstas threatening to F you up unless you buy their homemade rap CD.

In 2010, I think Strip snobs have a real hard time making a “cleanliness and safety” case for The Strip over Downtown.

I spend an equal amount of time in each place.  Actually, it’s probably closer to 60%/40% in favor of The Strip, and I just don’t see the same smiles from people trudging from one Strip property to the next while queuing up at crosswalks in the blazing sun.

The Strip has a way of making you feel like a loser if you aren’t a VIP.  People are categorized into gold, platinum, diamond, on-the-list, not-on-the-list, beautiful, ugly, etc.  They are always aware that they are being judged, and I think they over-drink due to the social phobia and insecurity that the Strip fosters.  It’s High School all over again.

Downtown is different.

It’s very much a “come as you are” atmosphere.

People on Fremont Street sing, they break into dance, they smile, they toast each other … even though the crowd is far more silly, the demographic is one that seems to be more mature and secure with themselves.  It’s hard to explain other than to say that it’s just much more …. “real”.

Another thing I really like about Downtown is that the Twitterati and social media scenesters are almost NEVER anywhere to be found.  There just aren’t many red carpets, openings, or celebrities to stalk Downtown.  Because of this, it’s become an even more comfortable place for me to unwind.  Sure, during a particular event (I assume the Mob Museum opening will be one of these), the tweeting herd will descend en-masse to make token appearances and declare their love for all things Downtown … but the place is sucker-free 99% of the time.  One of my biggest hopes is that it stays this way.  Sometimes I feel like I get chased out of my own refuges as places fall in and out of favor with iFakesters, so all I can do is hope that the place remains tragically uncool from that standpoint.  Dare to dream I suppose.  My extolling its virtues will likely end up biting me in the iAss in some respects.  Part of me wants to diss the place to keep it more to my iSelf, but I just can’t do it.

Fremont Street also does not get nearly as much real media love as its larger cousin to the south, but goddammit, they have me … the world’s greatest 30% accurate blogger.

What more could they possibly need?

Anyway, it’s only the second week of June, but so far, so good with the new Fremont Street theme.  Everybody seems to be having an excellent time, including naturally-depressive yours truly.  What can I tell you, the place makes me smile, and I refuse to feel like a loser because I enjoy light shows and tribute bands.  I like them goddammit, and I hereby declare it to the world.  Whether you admit it or not, I think you enjoy them too.

I still enjoy a good buffet, a good fountain show, and a good production show on The Boulevard, but more often than not … Fremont Street is my preferred stomping grounds.

With that, allow me to leave you with a parting montage of my Summer of the 70′s experiences to date.  Some brief footage of this weekend’s KISS concert is included:

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