It makes sense that my two stories in this month’s issue of Six Degrees Las Vegas are published back to back in the magazine (pages 44 and 46). The Killers opening the new Joint concert hall at the Hard Rock Hotel ties in directly to the Vegas-spawned quartet’s headlining of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, as both events take place the same weekend, and not by coincidence.

One great side effect of Coachella’s relative proximity to Vegas is the visits by a number of bands and artists scheduled to play that three-day festival in Indio, Calif. right here in Sin City the same weekend. This year, all three headliners are performing pricey (and mostly sold-out) shows: The Cure on Friday, April 17 at the Pearl inside the Palms resort, Paul McCartney on Sunday, April 19 at the Joint, and the aforementioned Killers show opening the new-and-improved Joint, also on Friday.

Of course, I’ll be going to none of the above shows. I’ve seen the Killers enough times to last me a few years, Cure tickets were mind-numbingly expensive and Sir Paul … those tickets went in the blink of an eye. Really, there are a number of concerts I’d love to hit that are coming to Vegas soon, including Depeche Mode and the once-in-a-lifetime (since Lollapalooza) combo of a fully reunited Jane’s Addiction and Nine Inch Nails. But ticket prices for these shows (both at the Pearl) have been so exhorbitant ($95 at the low end for JA/NIN and $200 on the high for DM) that no reasonable person, especially not in this economy, can afford them. But given that they’ve been selling briskly, there are apparently a lot of unreasonable people out there.