Just by complete luck, we witnessed the last Stray Cat show in almost 10 years. I know that they had played at Cal State Fullerton the one year that the Hootenanny had not be in Irvine in July (up to that point).
The following is taken from the Orange County Register:
It has been a decade since the influential rockabilly trio performed together, one of its final stops being a sold-out show at Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa on July 22, 2008. Now it looks like the Stray Cats will strut once again and will headline Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend on Saturday, April 21, at The Orleans Hotel (4500 W. Tropicana Ave.) in Las Vegas.
The show will take place Thursday, April 19-Sunday, April 22 and also feature sets by the legendary Jerry Lee Lewis, Duane Eddy, Carl Mann, The Eldorados and more. There will be eight different burlesque shows, a car show, vintage fashion show, pin-up contests, jiving lessons and classes, pool parties and more. Four day passes start at $150 at VivaLasVegas.net.
The Stray Cats, known for hits such as “Stray Cat Strut,” “(She’s) Sexy + 17” and “Rock This Town,” formed in New York in 1978. The group has had numerous periods of inactivity as each member has worked on solo projects. Now that a decade has passed since its last performance, Setzer, who jokingly said he’d want to get the group back together before he lost his pompadour, also said that he missed playing with the Stray Cats guys.
“I miss it,” he said during an interview in November 2016. “Especially now, I mean let’s face it, we’re not kids anymore. We’re getting older and when we talk about the stuff that we did and that feeling we had of taking over the world, as silly as that sounds now, it really takes us back and now I’m like, ‘Oh gosh, we’re still here!’ We’re still here and we can play our asses off, so, let’s play!”
Stray Cats including Slim Jim Phantom, Brian Setzer and Lee Rocker will reunite for the first time in a decade at Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend on Saturday, April 21. (Photo courtesy of Stray Cats)