Track #3: The Bones @Veil Pavilion at Silverton Casino Hotel
You’re looking at Patrick Vitagliano’s uniquely “cheesy” custom guitar. (Image: Christina Vitagliano)
Watching The Bones perform at the annual Las Vegas Guitar Trade Show at Veil Pavilion at the Silverton Casino Hotel, it was impossible to take my eyes off the uniquely shaped guitar played by the Vegas foursome’s lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Patrick Vitagliano.
His signature guitar, available soon via the company Valkenburg USA, is known as “Bonnie & Clyde,” as a tribute to the bullet-ridden car the famous gangsters were ambushed and killed in. Although the guitar—cheekily described by Valkenburg as a no “holes” barred shred machine—will come in various colors, Vitagliano told me that he chose “Corvette Yellow” since “it would obviously forever be known as the Swiss Cheese guitar.”
This photo screams R-O-C-K.(Image: Christina Vitagliano)
If you’re a fan of bands like Social Distortion and Cheap Trick, it’s easy to cozy up to The Bones’ brand of punk-meets-hard-rock crunch, strong melodies, and tight songcraft. Their sound is overlaid with Vitagliano’s appealingly cranky, snarling vocals and witty lyrics on standout songs like “Shoulda Known Better” and the dominatrix-themed “Ms. Discipline,” both from “Circle,” their recent and fourth full-length studio album. Filling in for the band’s lead guitarist Jeff Duncan (Armored Saint) at the Silverton was Vegas-based powerhouse guitarist Stoney Curtis.
It wouldn’t be a Bones show without the inclusion of band’s trademark cover songs, and tonight they dug their heels convincingly into The Cars’ “Let’s Go” and the ‘80s classics “Don’t Change” by INXS and Prince’s “Purple Rain.”
