My trip to Vegas with a girl, a bottle of Vodka, and tickets to see one of the greatest rock bands!!!
It all started with an idea, a very simple and yet dangerous idea. How hard would it be for me to sneak into Coachella? This is the first year concert goers couldn’t buy single day passes. As it turned out this is the first year also where I was ABSOLUTELY going to spend the money and buy tickets for Saturday and Sunday – but the organizers of Coachella went and screwed that up for me! But I digress. So I began thinking of ways to scale a fence, bypass a security guard or ten and get into Coachella without dropping hundreds of dollars for a three day pass and another three hundred dollars on hotels, etc.
I started trying to enlist people to go along with this plan of mine and no one seemed all that interested in driving for 2 hours to “maybe” get into a show – or “maybe” get arrested (although I really don’t think that would happen – we’d simply be escorted from the premises). So the next and possibly more subdued idea for my plan was to legally get a chance to see Muse. Then it hit me – LAS VEGAS BABY!!!
I had been checking the Muse website to see where and when they would be around Los Angeles but I was positive the show would be sold out. Turns out Vegas still had tickets and I was now determined to see this band that I’ve been playing on my iPod, in my car, while I cook dinner, when I’m taking a shower. MUSE! Over and over and over again. I sent out a FB message saying I was thinking of getting tickets to see Muse in Las Vegas and immediately one of my best Girl-Fridays said they were down!
I believe the next thought went something like this: HOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHIT.
We were extremely excited to have a girls-trip, Vegas, and Muse weekend all rolled into one!
More plotting, scheduling of hotels, and then contemplating what we would do when we got to town went on. We decided on The Luxor Hotel, for it’s proximity to Mandalay Bay and on vodka for obvious reasons. Hunter S. Thompson kept being mentioned over and over again and there were some thoughts that maybe we might get into a fair amount of trouble…all of these things were good in our book. The big day arrived and we packed up the car with the appropriate amount of booze (ok, a lot of booze), fashionable glittery items, shoes, all of the Muse CD’s I own, and we were off.
Now everyone has how “they” do Vegas. I myself realized a couple of things. While I may have driven out and been asked to drive with people I went with before – I’ve never driven myself there solely. The other thing is – I’m one of the only people I know who drives a stick shift car so there isn’t much sharing of driving duties when no one you are with knows how to drive a stick? So with stick – I was stuck. Fine-fine-fine….I like to drive and I drive FAST on the road to Las Vegas. I believe the speedometer read 95, 100, even 105 mph. I was kind of proud of my race car driving abilities!!! I found myself ( and it was truly only in my head) “racing” with other cars on the highway. A Porsche and a BMW smoked me in the end – but I pretty much kicked everyone else’s ASS! Girl-Friday slept most of the drive however she did wake up every time I cackled in triumph and yelled “eat it” at the cars I passed repeatedly. We got to Las Vegas in 3 hours and 30 minutes. “Like a lightning bolt” I exclaimed in victory at no one in particular!
We checked into our lovely hotel and went up to our room, for the cocktails were about to begin to flow!!! Here are a few I remember hearing once we were settled into our room (and after waiting the 
thirty minutes for our bags to arrive):
“Isn’t this room supposed to be a smoking room?”
“Yeah, the front desk said it’s a smoking room now – they are sending up ash-trays.”
“The only thing reflective of Egypt in this god damn room is the Hieroglyphics on the fucking beds comforters and the fact that I had to walk to Giza to get fucking ice”
“Uhhh…there’s no bathtub and no mini-fridge nor A CLOSET!??”
“So – I’m not that drunk just yet but that elevator ride made me want to vomit”
“Look at what a lovely view we have of the back of the Sphinx’ head and the airport – is this how terrorists are made?”
At this point we reminded ourselves we weren’t hanging out in the hotel room and decided fuck it….let’s get pissed drunk and play hotel ER with the food tray carts in the hall!!! You see, they looked like hospital gurneys, so we thought – ER!!! We pushed each-other at high rates of speed down the hall while the person on the gurney made the noises/sang the theme to ER.
It was almost show time and after a lovely civilized dinner at Wolfgang Pucks new restaurant, Lupo, and several more rounds of cocktails we were off to see Muse at Mandalay Bay!!!!!!
We got in mid-way through Silver-Sun Pickups set and marveled at the crowd in front of us to see Muse – or as I refer to them – the first band to put some balls back into rock-n-roll in a long time!
The band came on and rocked our faces off!!! Who knew three boys from the UK can make so much noise and sound so god damn eloquent while doing it? (I knew actually). They played every song I was waiting for (except for one – due to a still fresh break-up & a song I’m guessing he wrote for the now ex-girlfriend) – I told you I am OBSESSED. They worked the stage, the played amazingly and I have to say, as a seasoned concert attendant…I was completely blown away. If you have a chance to see them do it!
The rest of the night – well – you know that saying of what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…the rule still applies man! We did see the sunrise and polish off a bottle of Ketel One. Two hours of sleep and I was awakened and told we were going to brunch. Brunch was great – my head and my stomach weren’t pleased but it was ok – since I had a 7 ½ hour car trip back from Vegas to work all the toxins out of my system.
Note to self: Fly to Vegas next time OR when someone suggests heading to Hoover Dam and driving back through Arizona (on a whim) say: OK!
It’ll save your sanity and you’ll get to see the Hoover Dam!!!!!
We had a blast and managed to even make it back to work on Monday. As far as a weekend in Las Vegas goes – I have to say it was AWESOME! Girl-Friday and I will definitely be doing it again – we might just have to pick a better hotel the next time around and sneak into Hugh Hefner’s next birthday party at the Palms!!!
Oh…and I’ll let you know very very soon about Coachella!!!
XOX,
Ms Amanda Jones
