Lovedrive – Tuscany’s Copa Room Feels the Sting!

Scorpions tribute Lovedrive played the Tuscany Hotel and Casino’s Copa Room venue on Saturday, August 2, 2025.

There’s always rock and roll in Vegas, and this headbanger is always looking for a good time in Sin City. With the recent closure of Count’s Vamp’d, finding new spots to enjoy concerts has become a priority. Lovedrive, a Scorpions tribute band, was always one of my favorite acts to see live at Vamp’d, so I wondered where these guys would play next in Vegas with that spot closing its doors back in June.

I was thrilled to hear the band was coming back to town, this time around playing the Tuscany Hotel and Casino. Despite being a lifelong Las Vegas resident, this was a spot I’d never been in. Confusingly, both the Tuscany and the Bootlegger restaurant on South Las Vegas Blvd. (another spot that’ll be hosting rock shows in town) both call their venues the “Copa Room.” The Copa Room at Tuscany thankfully isn’t too far inside the front doors and is quite accessible. You can tell this room was made with the Rat Pack tribute show in mind and not hard rock/heavy metal shows in mind, but it’s a decently sized room and sound quality isn’t half bad. I wouldn’t be opposed to returning here for gigs in the future.

Doors for the venue were supposed to open at 9:30 PM, with Lovedrive taking the stage at 10:00 PM. Possibly as the result of a miscommunications, doors didn’t open until much closer to the scheduled start time, though the band was underway at the proper time and held absolutely nothing back.

I was long overdue for a fix of live Scorpions music. Unsurprisingly, the band once again delivered.

You can tell these guys respect the legacy of the German greats they’re paying tribute to. Vocalist Bill C. is dressed just like Klaus Meine on stage, and does a surprisingly good job mimicking his voice, both when singing and speaking. Guitarist Jamie K. has the look of Rudy Schenker, even occasionally utilizing headgear paying homage to the BLACKOUT album cover. George C. as Matthias even has a “Talk Box” accessory to perform the most accurate rendition of “The Zoo” imaginable. Bassist GB holds down the low end exceptionally well, doing justice to those classic Francis Buchholz parts. And drummer Jeff C. wears T-shirts paying tribute to late Scorps member James Kottak. These guys know, love, and honor the Scorpions legacy. You can tell this before you even hear them perform!

Luckily, once the gigs gets going, these guys prove very quickly that they’re the real deal. They’ve got a great chemistry and stage presence, and even encourage crowd participation throughout the set. I’ve been watching these guys perform for many years now, and they can take a small club that accommodates less than 100 people and make it feel like an area or a stadium with the energy they bring to the forefront. For this gig, the band performed two sets of approximately one hour each, with an intermission in between. The gig ultimately ended around 12:30 AM, and I don’t think a single audience member was disappointed.

One of the best things about a Lovedrive show is the setlist. Anyone could simply go out and do a “Greatest Hits” set, but Lovedrive turns up the heat, digging deeper into the vault. Unsurprisingly, almost every set ends with the biggest hits; “Still Loving You,” “No One Like You,” and of course, concluding with “Rock You Like a Hurricane.” A wide variety of other classic tunes are scatted throughout the set, including “Loving You Sunday Morning,” “Lovedrive,” “The Zoo,” “Wind of Change,” “Blackout,” and “Rhythm of Love.” They even mimic the live performances of the instrumental “Coast to Coast” with their Klaus taking up a guitar! But their continual digs into the deeper catalogue are the element that most impresses me. The set even included two cuts from the earlier Uli Jon Roth period, “We’ll Burn the Sky,” and the title cut from 1975’s IN TRANCE record. The greatest thing about the Scorpions catalogue is how big it is, literally covering over half a century. This can also be a detriment, having to select a relative handful of tunes to play in a short live concert, but Lovedrive knows how to pull this off, creating a setlist that’ll impress casual fans and die-hards equally.

As always, being the crazy Scorpions fan I am, there are plenty of songs I’d love to see added to the setlist someday. A few tunes I’d love to see incorporated into the set include “Hey You,” “The Sails of Charon,” “Don’t Stop at the Top,” the title cut from the CRAZY WORLD album, and “We Built This House,” to name a few. The latter would be a great tribute to James Kottak. The band actually has a list of tunes they play on their website; these are a few of my favorites I didn’t see listed there (obviously, not every single song gets played at every concert, but these guys still know how to put together a damn good setlist!)

Lovedrive is one of the best tribute bands I’ve ever seen, doing justice to Scorpions music and making a small club room feel like an arena stage. The chemistry, the sound, the setlist – everything comes together beautifully. If you want to hear these songs the way they were meant to be heard, you can’t go wrong with Lovedrive. Don’t pass up an opportunity to catch them on the live stage.

PHOTO CREDIT: Live photos by Stephy Muzio for ZRockR Magazine – (c) 2025 – All Rights Reserved.