Fatal Illusions and High Priest – Heavy Metal Night at the Tuscany Copa Room!

The Fatal Illusions Megadeth tribute and the High Priest Judas Priest tribute played the Copa Room at the Tuscany Hotel and Casino on Saturday, July 11, 2026.

With the closure of Count’s Vamp’d here in Vegas last year, the Tuscany’s Copa Room has quickly become a go-to spot for rock and metal in Sin City. It’s rare a week comes that I don’t visit the venue for some rock and roll, and that’s unlikely to change any time soon! Thanks to the crew who keeps things going around here, including the likes of Mitch, Grayson, Brian, and Mike.

When tribute is being paid to my favorite classic hard rock and heavy metal bands right here in Las Vegas, I’ll certainly be first in line for the gigs. High Priest is a band I caught many times out at Vamp’d over the years, but this night was a special occasion because it would be my first time catching the Fatal Illusions Megadeth tribute, and this headbanger was certainly eager to see how well they paid homage to Dave Mustaine and company.

Fatal Illusions kicked the show off just before 9:00 PM. I’d never caught this quartet paying tribute to one of my favorite of the Big Four, and it was certainly something I came into with great anticipation. The first thing I noticed that these guys don’t in any way resemble the members of Megadeth (no blue-eyed redhead fronting the band!), but I’m a lot more concerned with how a band sounds than their look. And I’m pleased to say that they clearly understood the material they were playing, and did it justice. Even though their lead vocalist looked nothing like Dave Mustaine, he nailed his infamous “not a singer” vocal style, which is a difficult thing to pull off.

Megadeth has a huge catalogue, so assembling a setlist of their tracks is no easy task. Fatal Illusions shelled out killer renditions of classic anthems like “Hangar 18”, “Symphony of Destruction,” “Sweating Bullets,” “A Tout Le Monde,” “In My Darkest Hour,” “Wake Up Dead,” and “Holy Wars.” And for good measure, they even threw in “Tipping Point,” a cut from the band’s most recent and presumably final record! There were plenty of deep cuts tossed in as well, creating a nice variety of cuts for this headbanging Las Vegas audience… and yes, there were plenty of rockers up front by the stage rocking out, myself included! There are some other songs I’d love to see these guys work into future shows, like “Train of Consequences,” “Countdown to Extinction,” “Mary Jane,” “Devil’s Island,” “I’ll Get Even,” “Soldier On,” “Mechanix,” and “The Last Note,” to name a few, but I know these guys will be rocking Vegas for years to come, doing justice to Dave Mustaine’s music. I look forward to the next time they take the stage at the Copa Room!

And then we move on to High Priest. Again, these Vegas rockers paying tribute to the mighty Priest have been doing their thing for several years now, so much so that they’ve even begun playing in other cities. But on the evening of this homecoming, the band was firing on all cylinders, bringing satisfaction to this crowd of, as Rob Halford would put it, heavy metal maniacs.

High Priest is fronted by David Fisher, who also fronts the local Dio Rising tribute band. The group also features guitarists Marc Mersol and Andy Heilman, bassist Paul Cunningham (AKA Paulie Walnuts), and drummer Max Fermandez (who replaced former drummer Robert Wiggin, who relocated). This is a great crew of musicians who have a genuine love of the music of Judas Priest. Will you mistake these guys for the actual band members? Absolutely not, but you’ll be rocking out too hard to care. These guys do Rob Halford and company proud.

There are at least two Judas Priest tributes in Vegas, but High Priest takes things in a slightly different direction with an emphasis on songs that aren’t necessarily the most popular. You’ll get a few of the “anthems” thrown in like “Breaking the Law” and “Living After Midnight,” but you’ll also get a lot of underrated gems like “Starbreaker,” “Solar Angels,” “Devil’s Child,” “Beyond the Realms of Death,” and “Tyrant,” Many of these songs don’t even get played by the actual Judas Priest that often! In a town where people often want to pack venues to hear the hits they know and have heard a million times, creating a setlist that emphasizes deep cuts is a gutsy move. But in this headbanger’s opinion, it pays off in a big way. The crowd in the Copa Room this Saturday evening was all the proof one would need. They rocked the house, and there wasn’t a dull moment in the set. I’m eager to see what other deep cuts the pull out of the vault next time!

This was a killer double header of heavy metal at the Tuscany, and these tributes to Priest and Deth didn’t fail to please. Fans of heavy metal and/or either of these bands will want to make the trek to the Copa Room the next time both bands rock the house!