Las Vegas festival: 53 shows, four days, six stages, and Bill Murray
When Bill Murray is in the band you wonder just how invested he is. Will he introduce the act? Sing a number? Hit the tambourine? Pound the congas?
Murray did it all Friday night at the Big Blues Bender at Westgate. He and the Blood Brothers Band, powered by blues greats Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia, played to an overflow crowd at the Paradise Mainstage. This is the massive ballroom space usually set aside for the hotel’s Super Bowl party.
The blues are inescapable at the Bender. The event is sold out with more than 2,500 ticket holders taking in 53 shows over four nights at a half-dozen venues. Music pours from International Theater, Westgate Cabaret, the pool deck, two ballroom spaces and International Bar at the hotel entrance. The event closes Sunday.
Vegas entertainment pro Bob Traver’s back-line company is furnishing 98-percent of the equipment. The two percent, we guess, are guitar picks. (Tarver is husband of Vegas jazz great Michelle Johnson, who also worked the show and is headlining Myron’s at 7 p.m. Sunday.)
About 2,000 folks jammed the jam session, the standing-room crowd packed deep on both sides of the room. This is the fifth year of the Bender at Westgate, and executive producer AJ Gross said, “It was the most packed I’ve seen that venue.”
This weekend marked Murray’s fourth Bender dating to 2022. In is headlining performance, the former Nick the Lounge Singer on “SNL” alternated between percussion pieces (including congas, chimes, cowbell and woodblock) and backing vocals. He stepped out front on “My City Was Gone” by the Pretenders and a screeching take on Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.”
The comedy legend took a break from his position as backing musician and occasional front man to say the organizers were “gracious hosts,” and called for the tourists in the crowd to “beat up the locals.” The visitors outnumbered the locals about 95-5 percent. One-hundred percent got the joke.
“This is fun, a lot more fun than last year. There were a lotta spilled drinks at the last one,” said Murray, who appeared with Blood Brothers at International Theater last year. “I like the way people are working with their drinks tonight.”
Murray, who turns 75 in two weeks, then veered to a yarn from Big Sky Country.
“There are some Montana women here tonight, I can tell,” said Murray, wearing a red-and-black, pearl-snap Western shirt and jeans. “I’ll never forget going to a minor-league baseball game in Butte. The men would send the women to get the beers. They would come back with eight. There’s nothing like pioneer stock.”
That was the extent of his spoken-word contribution. Then it was back to the music, as Blood Brothers played a torrid, 80-minute set. Devon Allman, son of the late blues/R&B legend Gregg Allman, kicked it up a smidge as an unbilled guest.
Allman hosted his own blues jam earlier in the day, and headlined International Theater in 2022 with his Devon Allman Project. He has the family resemblance, and music chops.
Festival favorite Tab Benoit and his trio followed Blood Brothers. As he took launched into his set, a gray-haired man ambled up the step to the VIP deck at the side of the stage. It was Murray, and he stayed for the whole party.
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.