It was the biggest shopping season of the year, and hipsters with piercings, black clothing, small bank accounts and a penchant for karaoke were about to receive the perfect gift: a party that celebrated not spending money. There it was, confirmed by the Las Vegas Review Journal, the Las Vegas Sun and Fox- 5 News: Reverend Billy was going to preach his gospel of stop-shopping on December 21 at Dino's Lounge.
Keen on claiming my share of floor space and maybe even a seat, at 8 p.m. on Wednesday I strolled from Wyoming Street toward Dino's, passing empty parking spaces, cars and two enormous vehicles: a blue-and-white Crown Coach bus, circa 1976, with red "Reverend Billy" script on the side, and a white rental float with red-letters-on-white-light panels from Show Floats of Las Vegas. For the Vegas stop of their national tour, these minstrels of anti-materialism had turned on their heart light—both heart lights, in fact, on the back of the float. One panel of light announced "We Love You Ben & Lizzie," in honor of impending nuptials of two members of the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir; another exhorted passersby to "Stop the Shopocalypse!"
Bicycles, and locals who arrived on them, accounted for some of the empty parking spaces. "The choir has about 40 members, I think, and we're all here tonight," said choir member Gwen before pedaling a local's bike around the parking lot—with permission from its pierced, black-garbed owner—because she missed riding her own two-wheeled transport back home in New York. And there was much rejoicing.
By 8:45, the interior of Dino's beckoned to passersby, with syncopated keyboard riffs, beats from a snare drum and cymbals and punctuation marks of a trumpet and a saxophone. Inside, the place was packed. A David Schwimmer look-alike, Matthew Ross, introduced himself to me as the publicist for Rev. Billy. Ross introduced me to Savitri D, the rev's wife, who had selected Dino's as the venue for the evening's performance. James Solomon, the choir director, urged singers to interject "Stop shop-ping!" throughout the hour-and-15-minute spectacle.
Flanked by two video cameras that reportedly were filming footage for a documentary, Rev. Billy spent most of the show relating the formative moments in his life. Kicked out at age 16, Billy Talen went to New Orleans and found gigs as a barker at a strip club and then as an encyclopedia salesman. He later moved to New York. Sidewalk preachers and the film Night of the Iguana inspired Billy to adopt a minister's persona. Now he needed a theme for his sermons. "It's hard to be a preacher without a religion," said the Rev. "All I had was what I saw happening in the neighborhood." That is, what he saw as the Disneyfication of Times Square. "Mickey Mouse is the Antichrist!" he shouted, amid loud clapping and cheers. If anyone was disappointed to hear an autobiography rather than fire and brimstone, they didn't let it show.
Keeping the faith through a two-week itinerary that included the Wal-Mart capital of Bentonville, Arkansas; Lubbock, Texas; and, at week's end, Los Angeles, choir members were easy to identify. They knew all the lyrics, had grown dreadlocks, sat two to a chair with their arms around each other, and called out "That's not right!" when Rev. Billy described being kicked out of his family's Dutch Calvininst household.
Around the periphery of this bohemian mass, on barstools and at tables alongside billiard games, between the bar and the stage, locals from the ages of twentysomething to sixtysomething expressed a silent enthusiasm: Their eyes seldom left the faces of the performers. If anything, locals seemed too rapt to make a sound, or even to order a drink. "It probably helped business, considering it was the Wednesday night before Christmas," said Brandy. "When customers first got here they ordered a lot, and then they kinda got into what Rev. Billy was saying, which was totally cool, and then they left as soon as he was done."
One local, Hart, just happened to stop in at Dino's for a drink on the way home from work. A bartender suggested that he stay, in order to see performers who would show up later. "This performance reminds me of Jesus Christ Superstar, with the audience participation," he said. Another local, Karl, enjoyed the improvisational performance. "Only Billy seems to know what will happen from minute to minute," he said.
Locals Dayvid Figler and "Downtown Steve" noticed participation of another sort, in the form of watchful police officers who observed the goings-on at Dino's from outside the building and even had a paddy wagon van with them. When I went outside to look, at the end of the performance, no police were there. Figler added, "I thought there would be more Vegas-specific references in Rev. Billy's talk." I noticed one: The reverend did say he was proud to be at Dino's on a stage that was vaguely beatnik. Crazy.