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Posted by on Nov 13, 2021 in Blog, Las Vegas, Music and Concert Reviews | 0 comments

A Night in Halestorm

Last night, I saw the Halestorm/Evanescence concert at Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas.

What a great time with David Fruchter, Leslie Schenkel, and Leni Fruchter-Schenkel at Momofuko just prior to the show.

Awesome dinner, drinks, and Fruchter got us the best seats on the house, front row overlooking the arena floor and stage. Couldn’t have enjoyed better seats and the crowd was a really cool vibe.

Halestrom — and especially the lead singer-guitarist Lzzy Hale — were off the charts jaw-dropping. Easily, one of the best female rock vocalists I’ve ever heard. Just astonishing as a stage presence.

Of course, this spectacular night wouldn’t be complete without a Fruchter story.

As noted, David Fruchter snags the four best seats in the house. Front row, the upper rim of the arena, reserved seating, with full bar 30 seconds away, and no lines. We have a perch where we can place our drinks. There’s even a security guard atop the area so general admission riff-raff (downstairs standing area) won’t crash the good seats. I left like I was flying First Class on SwissAir snob-assing everyone back in coach.


At a break, Fruchter and I go and get some drinks, and he’s wearing some purple haze-looking pimp jacket made of crushed velvet, with a psychedelic pattern. It was like standing next to Prince. I kid you not — he gets 4-5 compliments from complete strangers just when he’s walking around. At first, I thought they were humoring him, but after this repeatedly kept happening I realized they were serious. Meanwhile, I got no compliments on my fashion taste at all.

So, we’ve got like 6 drinks and are balancing the cups trying to get through security back to our seats in time when a kid who looked like he might have been 20 with a fake ID gives Fruchter another fashion thumbs up. Fruchter being Fruchter, he has to stand there and bask in the glowing praise and while we’re trying to get through, he invites the kid and his girlfriend to join us down on the front row. Incredibly, although the show is sold out and it’s standing room only, the four seats next to us are unoccupied. Fruchter does a cool thing and insists they join us. Really cool.

Somehow, the security guard misses all this and now there are six of us on the front row. Halestrom’s guitars wail out a few riffs and the fake ID kid taps me on the shoulder.

“Hey, can we get our two friends down here to join us?”

Me: Sure, why not? (secretly thinking–and while we’re at it, let’s just invite the entire downstate to come up and sit in our lap.)

The kid climbs over the seats, races back up the aisle, and tries to get his buddies through the maze. But this time the security guy is doing his job and stops everyone cold. Meanwhile, the stage looks like it’s on fire and the Gibson’s are melting the paint off the ceiling. You couldn’t hear an atomic bomb if it went off.

The kid’s girlfriend tells me (screams in my ear) I need to walk up to the top of the seating area, sweet talk the guard, and let the other two kids in (like I have tickets to these seats, which I DO NOT). I go along with the request and now the security guard senses these kids are crashing the party.

Me: Umm, yeah, let them through — they’re with me.

Security Guy: “Do you have your tickets for those seats? I need to see the tickets.”

Me: (fumbling around, confused, acting like I can’t find the tickets–which I don’t have). Oh, my wife is down there (it’s actually Les, Fruchters’ wife) and she’s got our tickets. Hey, the show’s happening! We need to get them in.

Security Guy: “I can’t let anyone past without tickets.”

Well, fuck. Here’s where it’s time to get creative. Plan B.

Me: These kids are with Allen Klein. He got us the seats. (Note: Allen Klein is the only name I could think of that sounded “musically important” at the time.) Yeah, Klein really took good care of us! I’m going to tell Klein these seats were great! Did you see Klein tonight?

While the confused guard is trying to make sense of the question as to if he should know the name Klein, I then do a full bravado and summons the kids to just follow me like I own the goddamned place. Sometimes you can get away with that, with steel balls.

Me: C’mon let’s go!

With that, the other two kids follow and take seats down on the front row. 15 seconds later, I look up and give thumps up and flash a huge grin to the Security Guard who suspects he might have been gamed but isn’t going to create a problem just in case Allen Klein is a real heavy hitter with the Cosmo.

Fun Fact: Allen Klein died in 2009.

The show goes another 90 minutes, which is fantastic.

The kicker to the story is–one of the kids is wearing a Ted Nugent t-shirt. Seriously, Ted Nugent. Then, it hits me. Shit, maybe I was the one who got gamed.

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