Play Dirty and Cyanide. A Double (Lethal!) Dose of 80s Metal at Tuscany’s Copa Room!

The Play Dirty Poison Tribute played the Copa Room at the Tuscany Hotel and Casino on Saturday, May 2, 2026, with Cyanide opening the gig.

I love rock and roll. Anyone who knows me knows tha.! So, it’s no surprise that I find myself venturing on a nearly weekly basis to the Copa Room at the Tuscany Hotel and Casino to enjoy the bands they’ve continued booking ever since the closure of Count’s Vamp’d last year. My thanks as always to the staff at Tuscany, including Mitch, Grayson, Mike, Brian, and everyone else who does their part to keep live music going in Sin City. While this room was created primarily for Las Vegas’ long running Rat Pack tribute show, it’s become a hot bed for other kinds of live music, and even comedy gigs!

Again, unfortunately, I do have to bring a bit of unpleasantness to light that I’ve mentioned in my last few reviews for gigs at the Tuscany, and that’s the presence of a Grateful Dead beer event that the rear parking lot has been hosting as a sort of “pregame” for the Phish concerts at Sphere. The problem is that Tuscany lacks a parking garage, so any sort of event that takes up parking spaces makes it very difficult to find a space to park; I’ve had to park at a different casino and walk back over on at least one occasion. I totally understand the want and need for a Phish pregame… but it needs to happen somewhere else. This has made finding parking a nightmare for any Tuscany gig, and it can’t continue. Let’s hope this is the last time rock fans attending a gig in Tuscany’s Copa Room ever have to deal with it!

One area I’m giving major credit to the Tuscany/Copa Room, however, is much earlier start times for rock and roll gigs. This is something I’ve been wishing for over the course of the past several years on the scene, and they’ve certainly delivered on this front. In this case, doors opened at 6:30 PM and the show started around 7:00 PM. It’s a long overdue pleasure for someone who wants to be in bed by 10:00 PM. I truly hope other venues around town will follow the Tuscany’s example here… it’s a major step forward for the Vegas music scene. Not everyone wants to literally rock and roll all night.

Robert Hussey, for over a decade, has been one of Sin City’s most energetic and entertaining frontmen. This guy is in no fewer than four bands, and what’s truly surprising is that each of them is great! He physically resembles Motley Crue singer Vince Neil and has a similar singing style, albeit much more powerful and competent; if the Crue ever wants to replace Neil, they need look no further than this guy! With many of the Tuscany gigs, Hussey has been “opening for himself,” playing a set with his original band Cyanide, and then playing one of his tribute bands. In this case, that was his Poison tribute, Play Dirty.

The Cyanide gig kicked things off. Cyanide is largely a band in name only, in that Hussey is the one consistent member; in the decade between the band’s two studio releases, LETHAL DOSE and 21 GUN SALUTE, he remains the one constant. He did, however, bring back earlier drummer Ryan Gillan in more recent months, which was certainly a good move. These originals sound like unearthed Motley Crue tunes from the Sunset Strip era. Much of Vegas’ music scene feels like it’s stuck in the 1980s (not that that’s a bad thing), but Hussey is that rare frontman and songwriter who can create new and original songs that sound like they came right out of that time and place. While the gig mostly consisted of originals, we did get some sweet covers near the end, including numbers from Ratt and Def Leppard.

Play Dirty took the stage not long after the Cyanide gig ended. Hussey’s bands largely share the same personnel, so for the most part this only required some backdrop and costume changes. The look of Play Dirty is more of a general 80s glam one than one that specifically looks like the actual members of Poison, although Hussey did don glasses, hat, and jacket resembling those worn by Bret Michaels. In the late 80s and early 90s, Poison’s classic lineup recorded three great studio records packed with glam and sleaze classics, and it’s no surprise the set pulled from this trio of releases.

Mr. Hussey owns any stage he’s on, and that was made clear from the get-go with this assortment of Poison classics. Again, Hussey’s voice resembles Vince Neil more than Bret Michaels, but it doesn’t matter because this guy can sing anything and make it sound powerful and charismatic. His performance on this night would’ve done Bret, Bobby, Rikki, and CC proud. He regularly encouraged crowd participation and even allowed a young child in the audience to sing some of the vocals, which the rock fans in the Copa Room seemed quite enthused with.

It was made clear from the beginning of the gig that the band had to be done and cleaned up by 10:00 PM due to the presence of another event happening in the Tuscany’s Copa Room, and while Rob expressed concerns with the time constraints, the band was still able to perform every single song on the setlist and finish with time to spare. Despite this, the set never felt like an obligation or a rush job. It was packed with Poison hits like “I Want Action,” “Talk Dirty to Me,” “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” “Fallen Angel,” “Nothin’ But a Good Time,” and “Something to Believe in,” to name a few. The band even pulled out several minor hits and slightly deeper cuts from those first three Poison records, including “Let Me Go to the Show,” “Ride the Wind,” and the title cut from the 1990 FLESH AND BLOOD record. An enthused audience packed the area near the stage and was rocking out the whole time.

It was a great gig packed with music, no questions asked. There were a few other Poison tracks I’d have love to heard, including “Life Goes On,” “So Tell Me Why,” and “Stand” (the latter from 1993’s NATIVE TONGUE, their lone effort with guitarist extraordinaire Richie Kotzen), but the band did a great job balancing hits and deeper songs alike. Robert Hussey knows how to rock the stages of Sin City, and he did a fine job bringing the music of Poison back to life on this evening at the Tuscany’s Copa Room. Whether you’re hearing the guy do originals, Poison, Iron Maiden, or Motley Crue tunes, he delivers the goods and then some. Do yourself a favor and catch him doing what does best.