The B-52s may be done touring but they’re hardly done. Kate Pierson, Fred Schneider and Cindy Wilson paid their dues more than 40 years ago as pioneers of the independent touring circuit, having traveled from their Athens, Ga., headquarters to New York in December 1977 for the band’s first out-of-state gig at Max’s Kansas City. The Monday-night crowd heard surf guitars riffs and ’60s Farfisa organ sounds recontextualized as genre-bending, avant-garde dance music by a quintet decked out in quirky thrift-store couture.
That show, with classics “Rock Lobster” and “Planet Claire” on the setlist, could be considered ground zero for what would become known as new wave music. “We were so different from anything else, especially coming from Georgia,” said speak-singing frontman Schneider in a phone interview with Las Vegas Magazine. “It was like, ‘Where on Earth did these people come from?’”
Now people are coming from all over the world to see them for Love Shack: The Vegas Residency. Although the B-52s completed a farewell-to-touring tour with a homecoming show in January, there is still much life in The World’s Greatest Party Band.
“We’re still going to do shows,” said Schneider, who considers himself more comedian than vocalist. “I had planned on not touring before COVID. I just was tired of touring. Flying is not … very rarely do we fly a private jet, so it’s like getting to the airport, going to the airport. What a chore. I’m not a people person. I just want to tell people to shut up.”
With band members involved in various business interests, it made more sense to have fans come to them. The Final Tour Ever stop at The Venetian went over well enough for the B-52s to receive an invitation for future extended stays.
“The lighting’s there. We don’t have to schlep and rent stuff. Sound’s good. They’ve treated us really well,” said Schneider. Along with expected classics “Roam” and “Private Idaho,“ the band may include rarities and surprises. “We want to do songs we didn’t do on the last tour and the last time we were in Vegas.”
The Vegas dates make it possible, if not probable, for founding drummer Keith Strickland to see a show if not sit in with the band. Strickland, who retired from touring in 2012 and came onstage for a bow at the final Final Tour Ever concert in Athens, became the band’s creative spark after guitarist Ricky Wilson died in 1985. He’s notoriously shy though, hardly possessing the ego of someone responsible for the lion’s share of compositions on the B-52s 1989 comeback album Cosmic Thing.
He’s also responsible for the iconic wigs Pierson and Cindy Wilson became known for—sort of. “The wigs came with our first show,” recalled Schneider. “Keith said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to see these things downtown.’ I went and looked and they were fun fur pocketbooks that you could put on your head, so we got the girls to get them and they wore those on the first show.”
8:30 p.m. May 10 & 12-13, starting at $49.50 plus tax and fee. ticketmaster.com
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