DOS GRINGOS ROCK THE HARD ROCK HOTEL AND CASINO – CHARITY CONCERT 30 JANUARY 2009

I’m still not up to 100% after last night’s concert – yes, it was that good

Just to remind everyone who and what this is all about, Dos Gringos is a band made up of two F-16 pilots – Trip and Snooze – who know how to write songs, sing, and play guitar just as awesomely as they fly fighters. Their website is www.dosgringosrocks.com. No, they ain’t church choirboys so don’t go there if you’re easily offended by rough language. If you aren’t offended, you’ll laugh you alpha off if you know a bit about military aviation

The concert was to benefit the Air Warrior Courage Foundation. Yeah, it’s a good cause. Their website can be found at www.airwarriorcourage.org/

To quote the Foundation’s website:

For over thirty years the Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association (RRVA) has provided scholarship assistance to the surviving dependents of U.S. military personnel killed-in-action, missing-in-action, prisoner-of-war or killed while performing aircrew duties in a non-combat aircraft accident; and, more recently, families of association members. Nevertheless, it has become clear that other philanthropic, civic and patriotic programs are necessary in order to achieve the RRVA’s guiding principles of Pride of Patriotism and Defense of the Constitution.

Therefore, in 1998, the Air Warrior Courage Foundation (AWCF) was formed by the membership of the RRVA. This action was taken in recognition of problems being increasingly faced by active, retired and/former members of the U.S. military, their families and our nation at large. Areas of interest include:
* The need to expand “caring for our own” programs and activities to assist disabled, needy former members and their dependents of the U.S. Armed Services; widows and orphans of deceased veterans facing medical-incident related expenses beyond their ability to reasonably meet;
* To develop programs to perpetuate the memory of deceased veterans of the U.S. Armed Services and to comfort their survivors;
* To sponsor and/or participate in activities of a patriotic nature;
* To provide scholarship assistance, funding and/or programs for educational purposes, particularly those leading to military aviation careers;
* To encourage programs that develop in American youth those attributes that are basic characteristics of good citizenship and military service;
* To provide support for the education of those in fields related to aviation and space; and,
* To provide recognition of excellence in aviation and space disciplines or exploration.

I don’t care that times are tough for me – this is a good cause and I’d have given even if it weren’t for a Dos Gringos concert

Rather than spend God knows how long re-writing something I’ve already written, I’m going to re-post my contribution to the discussion thread on the F-16.net forum about this

From the pages of F-16.net:

Oh yeah, it ROCKED

Parking was a cast iron pain in the tailpipe as Dos Gringos wasn’t the only concert at the Hard Rock last night – NOFX was playing at The Joint and it took all my training gained in acquiring my Bachelor’s degree in Parking Technology that I earned at Palomar College along with my time in car sales and valet parking to find a slot. No Sierra, it’s a fairly small parking structure and it took me nearly 20 minutes!

I’m proud to say that i had the privilege of meeting Roscoe (one of the forum members on F-16.net) – a great guy all around I just hope I didn’t make too much of a nuisance of myself! Funny stories? He’s got a million of ‘em. Just ask him about what rank the Snackos at the Pentagon are I just hope we get to hang out at Nellis some time so I can hear more of his stories as related to different jets

Alas, there was no Weed due to a few different factors, but a margarita and a (thanks to Roscoe) double shot (seemed like a double) of bourbon had the desired effect

Concert report:

Dos Gringos Ticket - Thanks go to Roscoe for scanning and uploading the image

The set started off with Goin’ in for Guns and included such favorites as HLTC (which does NOT stand for Heat Loves TC ), Sammy Small, Squiggly P0rn, I’m a Pilot, The Legend of Shaved Dog’s Ass, Jeremiah Weed, You’ve Got to be in The Guard, Last of the Breed, and The Hound War Song. There were several lyrics changes such as during I Wish I had a Gun where homage was paid to the British Harrier pilots with a verse about hovering and popping in and out of bush and another verse was added for the Germans with the Eurofighters with their awesome cockpit displays. Oh, and during Things I Like, several ladies took to the microphone for the verse neither guy would sing on the CD !

DOS GRINGOS

We cheered enough for an encore of sorts. No, this wasn’t your usual encore – it was Dos Gringos covering such songs as Neil Diamond’s Comin’ to America and concluded with an awesome rendition of Ozzy Ozbourne’s Crazy Train

D@mn! Trip’s got some mad guitar skilz

DOS GRINGOS

I also got to say hi to Snooze while out on intermission and got to shake both of their hands and thank them for the concert and all the fun

I almost forgot to mention – there were a few new songs in the set and according to one of the guys who brought the T-Shirts and CDs, Dos Gringos will be going back into the studio for a THIRD ALBUM

DOS GRINGOS

After the concert Roscoe had to head back to base, but I figured it was a good idea to burn off a bit of the alcohol before going home so it was off to Mr. Lucky’s 24/7 for some pizza and water before playing a slot machine and leaving with a few dollars more than I’d dropped into it

All told and everything considered, it was a Foxtrotting AWESOME night! Big thanks go out to Dos Gringos for putting on such a show, to the Hard Rock for everything they did to make it possible, and to Roscoe for the beverage

Now if we can only make this an annual benefit concert…

[EDIT] I don’t know how I forgot this before, but I have to let everyone know that Snooze auctioned off his old acoustic guitar about halfway through the show with all the money going to the charity. It’s the guitar that most of our favorite songs were written on and everyone on stage autographed it Cool This act of kindness brought in an extra $822.69 for the cause