Viva las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend 17 Archives

This is the final post on my recent trip to Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend #17. You can see Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday by clicking on the day.

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Sunday is normally the big “Pool Party” day but as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts I was not going to be able to attend Sunday’s party due to wanting to support and dance to a favorite Toronto band “The Millwinders” who were playing at 1:00pm.

But before we could dance till we dropped we needed fuel and that meant Easter Brunch with my friends and my family. I made sure to wear something very Easter like for the day.

Viva Las Vegas 17 — Vintage 1940s dress purchased on Etsy. New Saddle Shoes from Etsy. Purse from Dungaree Dolly’s Bags and Purses

At Brunch my mom spoiled my friends and I with TONS of chocolate & candy to keep us fueled I think for the next year. Thanks MOM! Thank goodness I was going to be dancing later lol!

Easter Brunch at Viva Las Vegas 17 — mmmm Easter goodies

Now it’s Millwinders time!

The put on such a good show (as usual), and I was so impressed with the amazing turnout too! Sometimes this time slot can be tricky because so many people want to hit up the pool party but I really felt that people really came out and showed their support this time. Thanks!!

Once the performance was done, we tried to gather as many of the “Canadians” that were at the show for a group picture (Thanks Jerry for the photo).

I think we clean up nicely, if I do say so myself.

Millwinders done…now it’s shopping time! I tend to wait till Sunday to go shopping because I’m not a huge fan of fighting people for space to see items on racks so I wait. Hey if I did not see it, I cannot miss it is my personal theory when shopping at Viva. I have gotten lucky every year with finding something and this year was no different.

I purchased the following items (with images NOT taken at Viva):

This mint condition late 1940s dress. I was in love with the yellow accents.

late 1940s vintage dress — Photo Credit: Tai Heng

A Mode Merr skirt. The fabric is vintage, made into a new skirt and the back the button is a heart.

This is my third skirt from Mode Merr, and it will not be my last. I 100% recommend their clothes and the owner is just a doll as well.

Vintage Scarf for my hair. Sorry for the blurry iPhone pic but this is the only image I have of my vintage scarf in action. I love the checkered pattern…a lot.

Now that I spent all my money, we then chilled till it was time for the Jive Contest in the Main Ballroom. I love the Jive Contest because I love dancing and I love seeing all the fantastic skirts whirl around on the dance floor.

Everyone did an amazing job and I had a couple of favorites which I will keep to myself (because they did not get in to the finals) but overall I was uber impressed.

Once we finished it was time to change and get ready for the final evening at Viva..NOOO!!!! I was really excited for this evening though because I was going to get to see not 1 and not 2 but 4 Rockabilly Sun Records legends on the stage at one time. Sonny Burgess, Carl Mann, Hayden Thompson, Narvel Felts.

But before that big number I was treated to a band earlier in the evening that I had never heard of before but boy was I glad I did because they were fantastic!

Rumble King

After I calmed down from dancing to such a great band it was time to settle in for the big Sun Records show which ended up being the highlight of my whole weekend. Especially when all of them got up on stage to sing together, which I’m pretty sure I will never see again.

And that my friends is a wrap for Viva Las Vegas 17. I hope you enjoyed my posts on the weekend and hopefully I will see you at next years Viva 18.

Liz 🙂

Hello Friends! I hope you had a marvelous weekend, I know I did as it was my birthday on May 4th. It was filled with friends, food, drinks and marvelous time with my husband. I was truly spoiled and want to do it again! But I have to wait another year so now it’s back to normal life, which means back to my blog I go!

The last time we left off I just wrote about Day 1 & 2 of my Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly weekend adventures, so now we are at the Friday of the event….POOL TIME!

Viva used to have just one pool party with bands, vintage swimsuit contests on the Sunday but due to popularity (always a lineup to get in) they have added a party each day of the event. We could not attend the Sunday pool party due to Toronto’s very own “Millwinders” being on right in the middle of the party, so we decided to make Friday our pool day.

The day started out cold, windy and dreary and we were positive that it was going to be a miserable day.

As you can see below there is no sun to be seen.

But then the clouds went away and the sun came out and that is when the party started. Like this lovely couple doing some dancing, how fun!

See happy smiling faces all around.

Side note about my vintage swimsuit. It is a “Ceeb of Miami” and I purchased it at Cabaret here in Toronto. The suit was in mint condition and I was super excited when it fit me like a glove. Next year I hope to enter it into the vintage swimsuit contest.

Men’s Vintage Swimsuit Contest-Winners

Photo credit: Monqiue Rondeau’s FB post in Viva Las Vegas 17 Vintage Swimsuit Contest

We ended up spending most of the day by the pool because they had a band, vintage mens swimsuit contest seen above (my vote was for the guy who looked like Clark Kent ) and lots and lots of great vintage looks to check out. You were never bored, not possible. Plus I got to hang with these lovely ladies for the afternoon and that is never a bad thing.

Now if the pool was not your thing you could of gone bowling.

Photo credit: Dean Villafuerte

Or you could of taken a Jive lesson if dancing is something you enjoy.

Photo credit: Dean Villafuerte

But for me and the gang it was pool day.

After we were done at the pool we all scattered to get food and then quickly changed so we could check out another Canadian band called “The Shakedown Combo“, a Rockabilly band/family from Nova Scotia. I have heard then before at the East End Rockabilly Riot right here in Toronto and I loved them a lot so I was looking forward to their show.

Here I am getting ready (only picture of me that night).

Photo credit: Dean Villafuerte

Shakedown Combo: Mother sings, father pays guitar and daughter bass….awesome!

If you get a chance to see this band live..do! They put on quite a show.

Sadly just after this show finished I got dreadfully ill which we later realized was food poisoning and the rest of my evening looked like this…

Absolutely nothing…sigh.

I heard that the evening was amazing though and the band my husband saw at 2am in the ballroom “Pat Capocci and Band” was really good and apparently my kind of sound (of course). So since I did not get to see them I’m going to end this post with a video of them at Viva so we can enjoy them together.