Fremont Street Experience

Somehow, this interesting Las Vegas side trip slipped my mind the other day. After a wonderful dinner at Delmonico Steakhouse, our group grabbed a couple of taxis and traveled across town to this less-than-savory section of old Vegas and proceeded to have a very fine time.

According to Wikipedia, "The Fremont Street Experience (FSE) is a pedestrian mall and attraction in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. The FSE occupies the westernmost 5 blocks of Fremont Street, including the area known for years as "Glitter Gulch," and portions of some other adjacent streets.

The attraction is a barrel vault canopy, 90 ft (27 m) high at the peak and four blocks, or approximately 1,500 ft (460 m), in length."

Fremont Street offered up a plethora of people to watch - they danced with abandon to the live band, crowds gathered around the amazing saxophone player to buy his CD. Kids of all ages moved in and out of the crowd, some with their parents, many teenagers, toddlers in PJ's. There was even a wedding party or three. Pole-dancers could be seen inside the casinos, dealers at the gaming tables here wore small suggestive bustiers. Homeless people and drug users mingled and were ignored by the police, not like I had observed on the Strip earlier in the day. This place had a unique vibe of it's own.

The Street Experience's claim to fame is the Canopy that stretches four blocks; which is in fact one of the world's largest LED screen and hourly they present a Lights and Sounds show. We arrived in time for the very tail-end of one show and stayed for the next hour's show.

We caught "American Pie" by Don McLean, which looked back at the summer of 1969. Honestly, I'm not sure that I picked up on everything that the creators wanted me to - there was so much coming at me at once.

But, I will tell you what was really cool. I happen to love "American Pie", like most everyone, and am of a certain age that I can actually remember when it was popular, albeit I was a quite small. Anyway, there is a point at the very end of the song when Don McLean repeats the chorus for the last time: "Bye, bye Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levy...".

And suddenly, it was a bit hushed and quiet under that huge canopy. And that was when I realized that several thousand people were all singing along with Don McLean and I was singing with them.

My Street Experience was more about that moment than any lights or sound.