The Vivas Are Surfin’ & Rollin’
The Vivas! Who? Ahhhh…The Schoolhouse Rockers graduated at the end of 2009 and transformed into The Vivas, they’re still the same excellent three-piece line-up reproducing rockabilly sounds from the 50s and 60s and The Kings’ regulars love ‘em.
If you’ve never seen them then make the effort next time they play at The Kings since they are very, very good and have been one of my favourite bands for years now featuring Dave on guitar, Sally, who stands up for the entire two sets on drums & Clarkie with his thumping upright bass.
The very nature of this style of music means you’re going to get a lot of songs over two sets in nearly 3 hours with the break, in total 44 were performed such as “Summertime Blues”, “Blue Suede Shoes”, a great fun track “Jungle VIP” also known as “I Wan’na Be Like You” from the Jungle Book (“Now I’m the king of the swingers”), “Rock Around The Clock”, “Not Fade Away”, “Peggy Sue”, “That’ll Be The Day” and “Ubangi Stomp” by Jerry Lee Lewis in case you were wondering. As if by chance their final encore was, of course, “Johnny B. Goode” however I must mention two first-time ever at The Kings tracks that worked really, really well. The first one was the Beach Boy’s huge 1963 hit “Surfin’ USA” and the second was the 1955 hit for Chuck Berry with “Roll Over Beethoven”.
A great night from a talented trio who love entertaining their fans. I’m not too sure when they’ll be back yet, you know where to look.