I’m No Winer

by Photo Diva

Monday, November 9, 2009

It was another crazy week for me but not because I had an overabundance of shows to go see and shoot but because I worked a 60 hour week at my day gig and no time to set up anything. Luckily for me my other half had something up his sleeve for this past weekend.

The Hilton Ballroom Before Event Began

Bill does sound gigs on occasion in order to do hands-on reviews of audio equipment and he had a small but mighty Cerwin-Vega set that he needed a larger room to test drive it in so he made arrangements with some musician friends of ours to provide sound in order to see what they could do. Since I had nothing planned and hadn’t seen my hubby much this week I decided to tag along and be a roadie for the day. Hey, even though I’m a diva that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to be a roadie and I’m not opposed to hard work. Besides I hear good things about the lead singer — whom I had previously met but never heard perform — and I did need something to write about.

The event was the 7th Annual Lee’s Wine Experience inside the Las Vegas Hilton’s ballroom and hosted by Lee’s Discount Liquor. This super-sized 32,000 square foot space was packed with thousands of bottles of wine from dozens and dozens of wineries (plus a wall of liquor and beer for those whose whose tastes lean away from fermented grapes) and somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 enthusiasts paying between $40 and $50 each to participate in this mega-tasting. Now since wine gives me a migraine and Jack Daniels and I had a parting of ways a few months back when he left me reeling in a downtown parking lot (not very Diva-like, I know…) I refrained from participating in the actual tasting, besides I was busy helping my hubby unload, set up and run the sound equipment in a little corner of the room near the entrance.

The Band Was Really Rockin The Ballroom

This was the perfect venue to test drive the Cerwin-Vega and a great group of musicians to test it with. The leader of this band (without a proper name) is Mark Giovi, formerly of the Las Vegas Tenors. To say that Giovi is an amazing vocalist and performer is a gross understatement and it’s no wonder that he has performed world-wide with Aaron Carter (Giovi was his vocal coach and back up singer and later his tour manager ) while on tour with NSYNC, Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys. He has also done such TV shows as Good Morning America, the Today show and the United Cerebral Palsy Telethon and locally he has performed in nearly every showroom in town such as the LV Hilton, Harrah’s, Golden Nugget, Tropicana, NY NY, the Stratosphere, Suncoast, GoldCoast, the Harvest Moon Dance at the Sahara, Neon Knights at Boulder Station, The Plaza, Sams Town and the Cannery.

Giovi’s vocal range and tone are equally pleasant and impressive and can easily do just about any type of music genre from pop/rock to jazz/blues and everything in between. Blending beautifully with Giovi was Mary WIlliams, his backup and co-lead singer. Our dear friend James D’Arrigo was outstanding as always on saxophone, Ronnie Payne was impressive on keys and the same with Philip Henry on guitar and heading up the rhythm section is drummer Chris Lukes. Overall I thought the band was a fun accent to the event and the sound covering most of the very large space was amazing. Good job honey!

Wonder If This Fits Within My HOA Guidelines

The wine event itself was remarkable only in that 100% of the proceeds of the silent auction part will go to Sun and Hae Lee Foundation which has reportedly given over $200,000 over the last six years to local charities like Opportunity Village. I was tempted to bid on the classic leg lamp replica (made famous in my favorite holiday classic movie “A Christmas Story”) just so I could put it on an end table in front of my living room window and piss off the HOA gestapo that lurks in my neighborhood and reports my every move to the board and fines me monthly for my un neighborly transgressions but the price was just too high for my modest budget. Overall, the participants I talked to, whether they preferred red or white, all agreed on two things: 1) the wine choices were varied and delicious and 2) there was no where near enough food provided to the drinking masses and if you were not at the front of the food line at the top of the hour when the handful of chafing dishes were refilled then you would be lucky to score a cracker or carrot stick by five after. One would think that after six previous yearly events the planners should have known better. Definitely not a smart move when you have thousands of people paying top dollar for a wine tasting and there’s no food to be had anywhere and many, many of those attending were griping about it. But, then again, I don’t think many people will even remember where they were once they came out of their wine-induced stupor on Sunday. Hopefully next year there will be sufficient food so this Diva can nosh on something more than two crackers and a carrot stick.

Rate this post:
(15 votes, average: 4.93 out of 5)

 Loading ...