Wendover, Utah

I have been listening to Joan Jett tunes for the last week. This is kind of unusual for me. Typically an old song will pop into my head and I’ll look it up on YouTube and play it for a day. By then I’ll have had my fill, and I will go back to my normal music-less mode. I think the deal with Joan is that 1) she is a hard rocker, and 2) I have never heard most of her stuff. Some of it was too scandalous for the airwaves, and there is a certain amount of hostility in there as well. Suits me just fine. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that she was a doll and has a heck of a smile. Pictures are nice to see, but it’s the music that keeps pulling me in.

So while I have been listening to her band, I have been looking around for information. I didn’t find much. She was in the Runaways, she did some movie work, but for the most part she has been playing Rock & Roll nonstop for the last 30 years. If she has a personal life it’s not on display.

Anyway, Ms. Jett & the Blackhearts are touring this year and one of their stops was Wendover, Utah, or more properly Wendover, Nevada, both of which combined form a wide spot in the road where Interstate 80 crosses the border on it’s way from Salt Lake City to Reno.


View Larger Map

Looking at the Google satellite view, it looks pretty forlorn. I imagine an old grocery store converted to a casino by wheeling in a couple of slot machines and a craps table. Cracked asphalt in the parking lot, tumbleweeds rolling by, and a nasty desert wind carrying salt from the nearby Bonneville Salt Flats, and I think: what a sad turn of events for such a great performer.

Then I look up Wendover and I find not one old delapidated casino, but three, big, new, bright shiny casinos with their own theater. It’s a straight shot from Salt Lake City, 120 miles down the Interstate,  not a big deal when you need some good old fashioned religion. Turns out the Blackhearts are not alone in this tour business. Looking at the schedule there seems to be a big name band appearing there once or twice a week. Okay, maybe not BIG names, but names I recognize, and some of them are not all that old.

We have the same thing going on in our neck of the woods at Chinook Winds and Spirit Mountain and maybe a couple of other places. Here they are Indian casinos but they are constantly advertising biggish-name singers and bands. Not too long ago I read that some bands were forgoing the big record deals in favor of concerts, as there was more money in performing live than they were liable to get in royalties. It seems to have blossomed into something of an industry. There always were big concerts by big names in the big concert halls, and there always were the small time bands playing in bars, but it looks like the middle tier has expanded. This is good, it means more people are making a living playing music.

Of course, it’s got to be a hard way to make a living. On the road, traveling by tour bus for months on end, living in hotels and playing two or three shows a week. Talk about your road warriors. No wonder Joan is wearing her hair short these days.

P.S. Wendover is on the Western edge of the salt flats that extend from the Great Salt Lake. There is an old, WW II era airfield. The Enola Gay made some training flights there. To the Southeast of town there is a pattern of roads that looks like it might be a development, but there is nothing there, except the roads and salt. Very odd. A salt mine perhaps?