Eddie Money once rocked it with a Las Vegas cover band

One night, years ago at Railhead at Boulder Station, Brody Dolyniuk called up his best Eddie Money impression.

Then he called up the real Eddie Money.

Dolyniuk, founder of the popular Las Vegas classic-rock cover band Yellow Brick Road, was onstage at the Boulder Station music club one night in 2004. Money had headlined the room earlier, and hadn’t yet left.

“When we started our set, I noticed that he and his guitar player were hanging out watching us from the back of the room,” Dolyniuk said in a text conversation Friday in remembering Money, who died that morning of esophageal cancer at age 70. “I started teasing him a little bit over the microphone, saying something like, ‘I think I heard that Eddie money is in the house somewhere. Maybe we can talk him into coming up and singing a song with us.”

Dolyniuk then offered, “Or, I guess I’ll just have to do my really bad impression of Eddie Money.” The band vaulted into “Two Tickets to Paradise,” the Money classic, with Dolyniuk following through on his impression.

“He came running up onto the stage and grabbed the mic away from me and finished the song,” Dolyniuk said. “It was pretty hilarious.”

The two met again after the show.

“He walked up to me and put his arms around me and said, “Hey, kid, you’re great … You’re like one of them, what do you call it? Chameleos!”

Money, known for his quirky sense of humor, was certainly referring to “chameleon.” Dolyniuk closed with, “Hopefully he finally made it to paradise.”

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His PodKats podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.