Robby Krieger Returns to the Tuscany Copa Room… With a Special Guest!

Robby Krieger played the Tuscany Copa Room on Saturday, September 5, 2026.

Over the course of the past year following the closure of Count’s Vamp’d, the Tuscany Hotel and Casino’s Copa Room has continued to attract many fantastic rock shows, local, national, and international alike. My continued thanks to the team who makes these gigs a reality, including Mike, Brian, Grayson, and Mitch. For over a year now, this has become the hot spot for rock and roll in Sin City!

Robby Krieger will forever be known as the guitarist in the Doors; one of classic rock’s seminal bands who had a brilliant but all-too-brief moment in the sun in the late 60s and early 70s. Even following the death of Jim Morrison, Krieger has continued to make music, both solo songs and performing Doors classics on stage for enthusiastic audiences around the globe. He’d previously played the Tuscany a few months back, but due to understandably high demand, returned to rock the venue once again, with a special guest in tow!

For these Soul Savages performances, Krieger’s band features keyboardist Ed Roth of the Doors Wild Child tribute band, drummer Franklin Vanderbilt, and bassist Kevin “Brandino” Brandon, which is the same group of backing musicians he used for his previous Tuscany concert. Right from the get-go, it’s clear Mr. Krieger has surrounded himself with superb musicians who know and understand all the material at hand, from Krieger solo stuff to the Doors classics; Roth in particular plays keys in a style reminiscent of late Doors keyboardist Ran Manzarek, which is hardly surprising given his role in the Wild Child tribute band. The rhythm section of Brandon and Vanderbilt is no less satisfying and rounds out the sound in fine form.

This set was primarily split into two halves. The first half of the show was the quartet playing primarily instrumental music, much of which came from Krieger’s solo output, although Krieger did do vocals on one of the cuts. One of the pleasant surprises of the first half and one that went over well with the audience was a cover of “Freeway Jam” from the late Jeff Beck. I’m admittedly not familiar with Krieger’s solo output, but enjoyed what I heard here, and will definitely be researching it some more in the coming weeks!

The second half was the “Doors Music” half. A guest vocalist sang on one track to kick this half off, but following the first track, the guest everyone had been waiting for got up to perform: Actor Dennis Quaid! This guy has been in more movies than I can count, and I was curious to see how he’d fare performing vocals on classic Doors songs. Given that he’d previously portrayed Jerry Lee Lewis in the biopic GREAT BALLS OF FIRE, he certainly has experience not only in acting but musical stage presence as well.

And I’m pleased to say that he did an incredible job with these songs, bringing a surprising amount of energy and a powerful voice to the table. The ads for the show promoted Quaid as a guest vocalist, and I figured we’d be lucky to get him performing on one or two songs… but he played the entire second half of the concert! This was an unexpected surprise of the best kind, and I loved what I heard. Mr. Krieger’s name may have been on the bill, but Mr. Quaid owned the stage for the gig’s second half. Everyone played together excellently, resurrecting Doors classics like “Soul Kitchen,” “Riders on the Storm,” “Roadhouse Blues,” and their cover of the Willie Dixon classic “Back Door Man.” Even at 72 years of age, Mr. Quaid never looked nor sounded his age. He performed these tunes with the vigor and the eccentricities of Jim Morrison in his prime. You have to have seen it to believe it. It’s not hard to tell this guy is a Doors fan and then some.

If there’s one minor complaint I have with an otherwise excellent night, it was the relative brevity of the set; the show in total didn’t last much longer than an hour, with no encores. This is somewhat understandable given that Robby Krieger is 80 years old; I’m grateful to still have the guy performing at all, and even more importantly, performing well.

Robby Krieger gave the Copa Room at the Tuscany one of its best performances of 2026 with this killer set of solo songs and Doors tunes, and getting Dennis Quaid on stage was a once-in-a-lifetime gig we’re unlikely to ever experience again. If Mr. Krieger comes to your city, know firsthand he’s not ready to stop rocking yet.