Photo Diva: Dangerous Curves Ahead

by Photo Diva

Monday, August 2, 2010

All girl rock band Dangerous Curves burn up
Diablo's Cantina at Monte Carlo Hotel Casino
Photo by Linda Evans

A few weeks back I discovered an all-girl rock band that I fell in love with by the name of Dangerous Curves and mentioned in a previous column that I would do a review on in the not-too-distant future. Well, because of some entertainment-related decisions made by the Sahara Hotel Casino, the Casbar Lounge will be morphing into — get this — a comedy club (another one? really?) so I decided that I needed to move them up to the top of my Diva schedule.

Dangerous Curves Lead singer Carol-Lyn Liddle heats up Diablo's Cantina
Photo by Linda Evans

I caught up with Carol-Lyn Liddle (Lead vocals), Kelly Forsyth (Guitar, Back-up Vocals), Nichole Shanefelter ( Bass, Back-up Vocals) and Sondee Kalama (Drums, Back-up Vocals) at their gig at Diablo’s Cantina at the Monte Carlo Hotel Casino on the Strip where they, of course, blew away the weekend crowd. Having never been inside this venue before, I was expecting the typical bar setup where the stage is some afterthought shoved in a corner but I was pleasantly surprised by the large stage and decent sound and lighting system in the upstairs live entertainment area. Not fabulous but not too shabby either. Diablo’s open air areas overlooking the Strip are set up with comfortable lounging areas and the area in front of the stage opposite the Strip view is set up with a few bar tables and a large dance floor area. My only complaints are 1) because the area is open to the elements it was a bit too hot and sticky on this late July night, and 2) the noise level is too loud for any sort of conversation — even when the band is on break — because of the noise filtering up from the bustling sidewalk and street below, not to mention the fairly toasted crowd in the bar trying to talk over the high noise level.

Anyway, these bad-ass rock divas perform the hell out of classic rock tunes and have appeared on most every stage in Las Vegas since they formed back in 2005 sharing the stage with other favorite Vegas rockers like Steel Panther as well as Paul Shortino of Quiet Riot and Phil Varone of Skid Row. Carol-Lyn, the lead singer of Dangerous Curves, is a mini-skirt wearing sexy little thing that sounds kind of like a Powerpuff Girl when she speaks but when she belts out hard-core rock songs like “Sweet Child o Mine” by Guns ‘N Roses with such power and impeccable rock tone and as the band tears through songs by Metallica, Saliva and AC/DC you will see that Carol-Lyn and the rest of the band have more cajones than most of the boys in town. It’s really no wonder that Dangerous Curves has been nominated for “Best Live Performance Band” by the inaugural Vegas Rocks Magazine Awards ceremony to be held on August 22 at the Las Vegas Hilton. If there’s any justice in the Vegas rock world they will win hands down.

I had a little email chat with Carol-Lyn about Dangerous Curves and here are some highlights:

Photo Diva: How long has Dangerous Curves been playing in Vegas and are any of you from Vegas, Long-time residents or…?
Carol-Lyn: The Curves formed in 2005 when I called Sondee (whom I was in an all-girl band a few years prior) to see if she’d be interested in creating a new project. We called upon Kelly and although she was already involved with a band, her curiosity was piqued and we got together and played a bit. We spent time with a few bass players until we found Nichole who, I say was dropped from the heavens, but really moved here from across the country. None of us are from Vegas originally. Sondee and I are from California. Kelly is from Canada and Nichole is from Pennsylvania. We’ve all been here for many years now and we love it! Las Vegas is a great place to live.

Photo Diva: The first time I saw/heard Dangerous Curves I was blown away as it’s not the norm to hear an all-female cover/tribute band be able to pull off fairly hardcore rock songs from bands like AC/DC, Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne with such skill and obvious love for the music. Who are your influences and do you have any that people would make people pause and say “what the…”?
Carol-Lyn: Thank you, Linda. We choose to cover the songs we love.
Well Nichole loves “The Smashing Pumpkins” but was listening to Judas Priest from the womb. Sondee is way into “Bon Jovi” and “KISS”. Kelly has a wide range of musical tastes and I was brought up on Olivia Newton-John and Linda Ronstadt.

Guitarist Kelly Forsyth rips up hard rock solos at Diablo's Cantina
Photo by Linda Evans

Photo Diva: You seem to have developed a rather large and rabidly loyal fan base of Vegas locals as well as out-of-towners. What is your secret to maintaining/fostering that fan base? Do you utilize social media like Facebook, MySpace and/or Twitter to build upon that fan base? With so many tribute and cover bands in Vegas vying for fewer and fewer venues willing to book live music why do you suppose you have such staying power?
Carol-Lyn: We make sure we say thank you as often as possible to the people that come out and support us. As I say during the show, “You could be anywhere in Las Vegas right now, but you’re here rockin’ with us, and we are very grateful.” Sometimes it’s not easy to thank everyone during a show so yes, Facebook and MySpace help us do that. There are a lot of rock tribute & cover bands in Vegas, and everywhere now, but few that are all-female and none besides Dangerous Curves that call Vegas home. We’re it! There have been many attempts to put all-female projects together, but we’ve found the magic formula.

Photo Diva: What’s the weirdest request you’ve ever gotten?
Carol-Lyn: A lovely young lady passed a note up to the stage with her room number on it saying she wanted all four of us in her private jacuzzi when the show was over.

Photo Diva: What’s the weirdest thing that has ever happened at a gig?
Carol-Lyn: We are very “active” on stage so occasionally we have wardrobe malfunctions and fall on each other. Sometimes the corsets we wear are pulled a little too tight and we get light headed, but no major injuries…(knocking on wood!).

Photo Diva: Do you have any other creative projects that you are working on?
Carol-Lyn: We are always asked if we have CDs for sale. We want to write and record more of our original music and possibly put one out. We are also refining our impersonator show which includes music by; Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, Ozzy, Axl Rose, Brian Johnson (AC/DC), Robert Plant, Bruce Dickenson (Iron Maiden), Rob Halford (Judas Priest).

You can still catch these amazing rock divas in the Casbar Lounge on Friday and Saturday nights, starting at 9pm through August 14. After that, who knows, but if the rock gods are smart they will land a regular spot there or someplace even better sooner rather than later.

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