Viva 17 Archives

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

Saturday is Car Show day and BIG Car Show musical act day as well. My favorite day!

This year the acts playing at the car show were:

Imelda May (headliner)

Lloyd Price

There was also the Rockats who I saw last year and were awesome. Robert Gordon, Los Straitjackets, The Aquasonics Surf Band, and the Trashmen also took the stages at the Car show and I heard were fantastic. So lots of music to be had at the car show this year.

Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend 17 — Friends enjoying the car show concert

I was really excited about Imelda and Lloyd and could not wait for when they took the stage. I have seen Imelda in Toronto and she was outstanding live so I was looking forward to seeing her play some of her new music and to a larger super excited crowd. I also LOVE the car show (I always see about 10 cars I want to take home lol) and the shopping that is to be had there as well so Saturday is my favorite day. BUT Sadly though I was still not 100% after getting food poisoning the night before so my favorite day was cut in half. I have limited personal pictures of the car show (I look like death) but a big thank you to my friends for documenting Saturday so I could show you it all here (Thank You–Dean Villafuerte, Stephanie, and Liisa).

The Vintage Cars

Shopping (the one and only semi okay picture of me before I hid in the room till Lloyd and part of Imelda)

My friends doing the shopping I wish I was doing with them.

Yup that is the right hair flower for you Vanessa 🙂 Gosh I have gorgeous friends!

Hair Pomade anyone?

By the time the evening rolled around I was in much better shape and felt good enough to put on my vintage 1940s long gown and make myself look somewhat decent. Why? Because….The JIVE ACES were taking the stage in the main Ballroom and I was NOT going to miss this band.

We then saw Crazy Cavan and the Rhythm Rockers and Gizzelle before jetting off to see another personal favorite band of mine “Jittery Jack with Miss Amy” from Boston! The Toronto Gang LOVES Jittery Jack and so we were out in full force to support their show and we were not disappointed.

And that my friends was the end of my Saturday at VIVA 17. Stay tuned for one more post on Sunday, when I was feeling 100% back to my old self!

Other Viva Posts: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday

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.