Nita Strauss Live at Skyway Theater – Minneapolis MN – March 16th 2024

Skyway Theater presents Nita Strauss live

Review and photos by Todd Johnson

I have to admit I don’t know a ton about Nita Strauss. I know she is an AMAZING guitar player and rose to fame as the lead guitarist for Alice Cooper’s band. It doesn’t hurt that she looks like a model, but she is also, i found out, very kind and very inspiring. Her band consists of Nita as lead guitarist (she doesn’t sing though…but she is one kick ass guitar player.) There is Johnny Young on rhythm guitar, Christopher Dean on bass, Josh Villalta on drums (and he is also engaged to Nita Strauss), the AMAZING Katt Scarlett on keyboards and, for part of the show, Kasey Karlsenon lead vocals.

Nita Strauss band was in town last November opening for Mammoth WVH (aka Wolfgang Van Halen’s band) which epic good time at the legendary First Avenue nightclub. The band has a great synergy and work really well together. At one point during the show, the power went out for awhile because there was too much electricity. I am not kidding! That goes to show how powerful a band they are. And for around $25 it is an AMAZING deal! If you get a chance, RUN don’t walk to got see them! It is worth it for Nita Strauss on her own, but when there is are two other kick ass bands it is a bargain.

There were two opening bands. The first one, Diamante, is the stage name of Diamante Azzura Bovelli, who is a great singer with an amazing voice that plays a lot of cool rocking songs that sound like they should be in from hair metal bands of the 1980’s. It was a very fun set! I have no doubt that Diamante will be headlining her own tour sometime soon!

The 2nd band of the 3 is called Starbenders and they were absolutely wild! The lead singer, Kimi Shelter, was a screamer….literally. The first songs they played heavier and the rest of the songs became more and more poppy towards the end. It was also Kimi’s birthday so Diamante and Nita Strauss came on stage to sing her the Happy Birthday song. It was very sweet.

See Nita Strauss live is a great experience.  She is an excellent guitar player.