One Headlight

I saw The Wallflowers perform at Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races last month. It was an odd concert and an odd venue. Let's back up a little. For those of you under 35 (and I completely understand that no one under 35 reads this blog unless one of my kids stumbles on to a post), The Wallflowers are a band that had several massive hits in the mid-90s, and their lead singer is Jakob Dylan, son of Bob Dylan. 

The Wallflowers are touring to celebrate the 30th (30th!!!!) anniversary of the release of their album Bringing Down The Horse ("BDTH"). Although I never actually bought the album, over 4 million people did, and of course I knew all of the band's big hits from that album. For this tour, The Wallflowers performed all of the songs from BDTH in order. Unfortunately, the album is extremely frontloaded. One Headlight and 6th Avenue Heartache are the band's biggest hits, and the first two songs they played. After Bleeders, the band performed Three Marlenas and probably my favorite song, The Difference. 

Those were the first five songs. I honestly could have gone home at that point. The band played the remaining songs from BDTH, and I barely knew many of them. 

Before the show, I listened to some of the more recent Wallflowers songs to try to familiarize myself with their later work. I didn't need to. I completely missed the fact that The Wallflowers were going to perform the entire Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' album, Long After Dark. I like Tom Petty. I mean, everyone likes Tom Petty. However, except for You Got Lucky, I didn't know any of the other songs from that album. No I Won't Back Down, no Runnin' Down a Dream, no American Girl, no Don't Come Around Here No More. The Wallflowers closed with I've Been Delivered (a song of theirs that I didn't recognize) but never played Heroes and finished with two Tom Petty songs that I knew, Refugee and The Waiting. 

Overall, such an odd venue. I mean look at it.

This looks more like a large hotel ballroom than a concert venue. On the positive side, if you can make it through the smoky casino floor, they have free soft drinks. And horse racing is always fun. And there was a Waffle House just down the street. You can go there with Cinderella and put it all together. And after that, you can drive it home.

Hollywood Casino Excursion

Charles Town Races & Slots recently changed its name to Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races. The good news is that this name was prompted by the addition of table games. The bad news is that the Charles Town Races & Slots song appears to have been retired. (Unfortunately, I can’t find this extremely catchy jingle anywhere online.)

We drove to Charles Town, West Virginia on Sunday to check out the new-and-improved casino. Before I get into the casino itself, can I mention the brilliance of West Virginia? You think I’m going to make a joke here, but I’m not. Every car in the parking lot had Virginia and Maryland license plates. I also saw a handful of DC plates and even one from Florida, but I don’t think I saw one West Virginia car. (The employee lot was probably elsewhere.) The Mountain State and the casino itself must make millions and millions of dollars annually from out-of-state residents.



So we entered the casino and found tables for blackjack, Pai Gow, roulette, three card poker, craps and more. This made me happy! As I approached each table though, I was shocked by the minimum bets requirements. $25 for roulette and Pai Gow! $50 for blackjack! Although that was too rich for me, the high minimums didn’t seem to impact others as the tables were packed.

Maybe the high minimums were due to the fact that I visited the casino over the weekend. Nope. A friend visited the casino on Monday and gave me this report:

‎10:00 AM - BlackJack: 2 $25 tables full & 4 $50 tables full. At 11:40, they were going to open 2 other $25 tables @ noon. So, we waited, but then the pit boss came & changed it to $50 just before they opened it. B.S.!!! So, we played a few slot machines & called it a day. Plus, they were doing very loud construction in the same room. Brilliant!

Hollywood Casino doesn’t need to have $5 or $10 minimums. Unlike Las Vegas or Atlantic City where you can walk to the next casino, Hollywood Casino is the destination. If you live in the DC area, you’re driving 60-90 minutes to West Virginia to gamble. There’s no competition and nowhere else to go once you arrive. Well, there is a Sheetz next to the casino, but you can’t gamble there (or can you?). There is a pending vote to open a slots casino in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, but that’s still months if not years away. Plus, no table games. Maybe you can drive to Dover (has anyone been there), but if you want to take a day trip for table games, Hollywood Casino is your only option.

In case you’re wondering, I lost $6 on the final horse race of the day and $10 on slots and that was it.

Trip to Charles Town

Over the weekend, I crossed over state lines for my first ever visit to Charles Town Races & Slots in Charles Town, West Virginia. I am not a big fan of slots, so I was much more excited about the horse races. Here are some notes from the adventure:

- The casino/racetrack must be a huge moneymaker for the state of West Virginia since every car in the parking garage had a license plate from Maryland or Virginia. My guess is the only West Virginia cars are driven by the casino employees.

- Between Charles Town, Atlantic City and Dover in Delaware, how much money is spent by Maryland residents in out-of-state casinos?

- The music played throughout the casino included songs by Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder and KC & the Sunshine Band. Maybe the next time I visit Charles Town, they will update their playlist to include more “modern” acts like Duran Duran and Billy Idol.

- Casinos will be the last place where smoking is permitted. Even though there are several non-smoking areas, you can’t avoid the smoke.

- I only played (and lost) $1 on the slots; I wish I did that well at the track.

- Even though I missed the first race, I did better on that race than the other nine. That’s right, I lost every single race. Even on the one race where I had a winning ticket, I lost, since I bet $2 on a horse to place but spent another $4 on exacta boxes. I bet $6 and won $4.20. No exactas or trifectas. A few close calls, but, well, you know the expression.

- Just like Atlantic City and Las Vegas, there is a Sheetz just outside the casino entrance. (I know that this isn’t true, but it should be!) Actually, Sheetz at 12:30am was the place to be. It was packed as everyone was buying their MTOs.

Even though the night didn’t turn out as I hoped financially, I had a great time hanging out with family and friends. While I won’t be rushing back to Charles Town, I’m looking forward to my next trip to a track or casino (preferably with table games). Please note that I have no plans to turn into Art Schlichter.