Whenever people ask me how Streetlight Manifesto’s last Vegas show went, I tell them, “It was pretty awesome to see a bunch of jazz band geeks beat the shit out of each other.” Thankfully, Streetlight chose a much better venue this time around: Vinyl at the Hard Rock Hotel. It was only my second time there, and though the drinks are overpriced (at what venue aren’t they overpriced?) and the re-entry procedures could be smoother, Vinyl has already captured a place in my heart as a great all-ages venue in a scene where 21+ rules. And speaking of all-ages: I definitely think that the lack of an age minimum contributed to the atmosphere that night. The opening acts were more enthusiastically received this year than last, which might have been partially due to the fact that people had a good hour in the venue to get boozed up before the show actually started, but I like to think that it was because kids tend to be less self-conscious about enjoying shows.
Fresh off of a trip to Japan myself, I’d been looking forward to seeing Japanese-American ska-punk band Kemuri, so I was bummed to find out before the show that they had dropped. Kemuri was graciously replaced by Sycamore Smith, making the show’s lineup exactly the same as it was last year. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider copy-pasting my review from last year and saying, “Well, the lineup was exactly the same, so the review is, too, to match.”
I can’t complain too much, though, because despite the fact that he didn’t have coffee that day, Sycamore Smith still put on an entertaining set. Armed with a guitar, kazoo, and his voice, he went straight into the first song, “The Windy, Windy Night.” For those of you who aren’t familiar with Sycamore Smith: imagine a drunk pastor singing with kids around a campfire at church camp. Songs off of his 24-song solo album Redux, like “Shan-tan-titty Town” and “Hokum All Ye Faithful” are funny in a satirical, jester-like sort of way. He also played a song off of his soon-to-be-released album Grospapa, called “Billion,” which had the same fun, silly sound as his other material, but as a melodramatic teenaged girl, the lyrics “There’s a billion hooks in the sea… Anytime you bite one, it’s never quite the right one” did get to me. On a brighter note, during the set, someone yelled, “That’s my dad!” which apparently has happened before, as Sycamore replied with, “Ah, yes, my long-lost son that I keep trying to forget but you keep coming back.” The crowd was for the most part unfamiliar with Sycamore, with one person even yelling “Who are you?” between songs, but everyone clapped along during the last song, “The Man with the Skeleton Arms,” and after the show I saw a line of people (including Sycamore’s “son”) waiting to buy merch from and meet him.
Dan P. (A.K.A. Dan Potthast, also of Dan P. and the Bricks, the Stitch-Up, and MU330) seemed a lot happier this time around than the last time I saw him, at 924 Gilman’s Ska Night back in January. Maybe because this time some jerk kid didn’t steal his setlist and then demand to be allowed to dance onstage during the set. Anyway, if Sycamore Smith is the drunk pastor at church camp, then Dan P. is the hippie school counselor who has half-given up on life but is still trying to connect with students through music. And he was definitely successful: there was plenty of cheering throughout his set, which included an acoustic rendition of the MU330 song “KKK Hiway” and “Talent.” The latter of which is from his latest album, To the Lions, which was two days old as of the day of the show, and, is, by the way, free on Jeff Rosenstock’s record label Quote Unquote records. In typical Dan P. fashion, he held a “mid-set dance party” featuring the song “Heart Beat / Survival” and plenty of flashing colored lights. Like Sycamore Smith, Dan P. had a line of people waiting to meet him and buy merch, and the day after the show, I saw someone wearing what looked like a brand-new Dan P. shirt.
Though there were people dancing throughout the opening acts’ sets, people were definitely holding back. So when Streetlight Manifesto finally began with “The Three of Us,” the crowd exploded with energy. A great way to judge how a punk show is going is to check out the pit, and the pit was already full of people by the time Streetlight was halfway through the first song. By the second song, “Down, Down, Down to Mephisto’s Cafe,” the entire crowd was dancing, jumping up and down, and singing along. On a more technical note, I was pleased that they’d kept the same stage set up as last time, with (from the crowd’s perspective), lead singer Tomas Kalnoky on the far left, and the horn section featured up front. The horn players seemed just as pleased simply to be onstage and playing–the trombonist couldn’t stop grinning, and the trumpet player was singing along to every song. Unsurprisingly, the trumpet, trombone, and sax solos were met with an incredible amount of enthusiasm.
My favorite Streetlight song, “A Better Place, a Better Time,” was a crowd favorite as well, which shouldn’t have surprised me considering we’ve all felt the need to be in a better place and in a better time (sorry, I couldn’t help myself). During the song, a guy stumbled in front of me, dropping and breaking his glasses. People tried to hand him the broken pieces, but he kept throwing them on the floor before returning to the pit. A friend of mine showed me a shoe that she had been hit with, and we later found two other shoes left behind after the show. I know I called the audience “a bunch of jazz band geeks” earlier, but those dudes go hard.
I’m sure they could’ve continued for hours, and it was obvious they wanted to. It took a good minute of the crowd chanting “One more song!” for Streetlight to come out for an encore. “Here’s to Life” transitioned into “The Big Sleep,” so I don’t remember during which song I thought my nose broke from being slammed onto someone’s shoulder. Like me, most people weren’t able to make it through the show unscathed, but there didn’t seem to be any complaints.
-Julien Boulton
Photos by Aaron Mattern and from a previous show
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