3/2/22
As one of rock’s most in-demand vocalists (Apocalyptica, Deadland Ritual + Scars on Broadway, in addition to his own solo recordings) Las Vegas native Franky Perez brings the magic with his impressively throaty + evocative pipes.
With the Franky Perez Band, the singer-songwriter-guitarist-percussionist has been gigging at venues around town, including the Chrome showroom at the Santa Fe Station Hotel and Casino. His current show combines a soul + blues-rock revue of cover tunes with his own rock presentation of self-written songs. Perez will be back there twice this month (March 11 + 18).
Performing two sets at the Chrome this past Saturday + over the course of two hours, Perez mixed soul firepower + singer-songwriter introspection. His tight four-piece band with standout lead guitarist Christian Brady was pumped up with three horn players and, for the revue part, two sexy female dancers to further light up the stage.
Perez, looking Rat Pack-esque in a shiny dress shirt for the first part of the show, opened with blues standard “Baby, Please Don’t Go,” which he recorded for the “Sons of Anarchy” soundtrack (his version currently has over 4 million Spotify streams). You could immediately feel Perez’ power + charisma as he dug his heels in deep, as he also did on smart choices like “Hard To Handle,” “Mr. Pitiful,” “The Letter” + show-stopper “I Know I’m Losing You.”
Perez also shined on his own material, particularly the hard-hitting bluesy “Run Down Nasty” (from his 2020 album) and his 2021 single “The Great Divide,” a moving + timely acoustic-driven love song with lines like “Love like we’ve never loved before/Kiss like we’re going off to war.”
Perez ended the night with a perfect one-two punch: a high-energy cover of his favorite song, Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds,” which also served to underline Perez’ Vegas roots, and a fierce cover of the Allman Brothers Band’s “Whipping Post.” Meanwhile, look for Perez to release a new solo album later in 2022.