Nobody told these guys the ’50s ended about 60 years ago. Shh, don’t ruin it for them.
Amidst the glowing neon facades of downtown Las Vegas, hundreds of valley youths, many clad in black t-shirts and rolled-up jeans, queued in clustered groups outside of Jillian’s Saturday night.
The air was cool and getting colder as a storm system worked its way into the Vegas Valley, bringing an increasingly chilly wind with it. This didn’t stop the yearning masses from waiting in the cold for more than an hour to see one of their favorite bands, psychobilly purveyor Tiger Army.
There is no substitution for the exuberance of youth. Something as pure and passionate as that ebullient connection adolescents make with a band or musician is as necessary and irreplaceable as post-pubescence itself.
In the past, teens would camp out at venues and box offices overnight – or sometimes for days – to obtain the best seats possible for a great concert. In the Internet age, this practice is all but lost, but the same dedication to the rock-and-roll experience was evident at Jillian’s on Saturday.
One of the few all-ages venues for live music in Vegas, Jillian’s normally serves as a family-friendly, multi-purpose entertainment center. It features a bar, restaurant, midway, arcade, lounge and mini-bowling lanes. When repurposed as a concert venue, however, more than half of the location is cordoned off to create a performance space, loading area, control booth and merchandise stand.
The show was scheduled to start at 7 p.m. At 7:30 p.m., the doors to the concert area were still closed, and the teeming masses of boys with high-rise pompadours and girls in retro dresses were still waiting in a makeshift holding area in the open-air plaza of Neonopolis.
On the other side of Jillian’s, those old enough to buy alcohol started to gather around the bar, some taking in a pre-concert meal, some merely throwing back drinks and dragging on cigarettes while a variety of professional sporting events glowed on the giant screens behind the bar.
The standard uniform for male patrons included rolled-up blue jeans, black Converse All-Stars or worker boots, black t-shirts (many of which bearing the insignia of Tiger Army) and a variation on the classic ‘50s pompadour, including some modern takes – multiple colors, variable heights, gravity-defying angles.
Their female counterparts came in two general types. Pin-up girls wore knee-length, shoulder-bearing, patterned dresses, with elaborate hairdos and chunky heels, often accompanied by black fishnet stockings. Other females were lower-maintenance, opting for an upswept bandana, t-shirt or short-sleeve plaid blouse, rolled-up jeans or pedal pushers and tennis shoes.
Tattoos were aplenty, on both genders and in a variety of designs and locations.
At 8 p.m., promoter Brian Saliba finally gave the go-ahead for security officers to open the doors to the growingly-impatient crowd outside.
Youths of all shapes, sizes and colors gathered near the small stage, itself tucked below the stairs leading to the second level of Jillian’s, which was closed off to non-event staff for use as a green room. A staff member took to the stage while sound technicians finished their preparative duties.
“I have something to tell you that might piss you off,” said the young man into the microphone. “But at the request of Tiger Army, there will be no smoking allowed inside the concert tonight.”
It might have seemed like a common-sense rule: An all-ages concert inside a family-friendly venue is an unlikely place for smoking to be allowed with or without the request of the headlining act. Some audience members were barely toddlers. Still, security guards had to shut down people and groups found smoking – many appearing too young even to buy cigarettes – throughout the evening.
The first band, Black Phantom Rose, had little in common with Tiger Army save for the stand-up bass guitar played by the lead singer. Otherwise, the band was a by-the-numbers punk act, one in which the crowd was only mildly interested.
Shortly after the first band finished, Love Equals Death took to the stage. Again, the band displayed none of the rockabilly or country influences of the headliner, instead playing a fist-pumping brand of punk rock. The Petaluma, Calif.-based band’s standout feature was not its music but its bass player, Dominic Davi, who previously played with popular Bay Area punk outfit Tsunami Bomb.
There’s a recurring phenomenon that happens at rock concerts, regardless of size, genre or venue: by the time the headlining act takes the stage, there is double the amount of bodies in an audience than during the opening acts’ performances. Sure enough, when Tiger Army descended from the staircase behind the stage, everyone milling about in the bar or braving the cold outside for a cigarette piled into the concert area.
It was obvious that, though competent, the opening bands did not command the crowd the way Tiger Army did by its sheer presence. Stand-up bass player Jeff Roffredo goaded the crowd to get a frenzied reaction, but he didn’t need to – those dedicated kids hung on every note the trio played, whether a revved-up tune like “Cupid’s Victim” or an old-school country crooner like “In The Orchard.”
Tiger Army blasted through a one-hour set of crowd-pleasers before lead singer and guitarist Nick 13 abruptly informed the crowd five minutes before 11 p.m. that the band was playing its last song. Both the band and the audience seemed surprised by this.
After finishing, patrons were quickly moved outside; barricades were moved to block the stage area even as kids still gathered around the merchandise booth, waiting impatiently to purchase a t-shirt or CD from their favorite band. Rumors wafted about the venue that someone had been “shanked” during the show. An ambulance departed from outside Jillian’s, heading south on Las Vegas Boulevard.
Could someone really have been stabbed during the show as kids sang along to songs of love and pain? Promoter Saliba ducked behind barricades to direct his crew to break down equipment and clean up. If someone was injured, no one was talking.
Not that it would have mattered. Those fans were too high on the magic elixir of rock and roll. And too busy pushing their way past other fans to spend 13 bucks on a Tiger Army t-shirt.
Around the corner (OK, technically around three corners and about half a mile south) at Rick Dominguez and Cindy Funkhouser’s Fallout gallery (1551 S. Commerce St.), most of the same crowd that attended Joyner’s reception showed up for the opening of Jerry Misko’s new exhibit, “Smoke & Chanel.” Yes, it was more of Misko’s signature paintings of neon signs. But damn, no one paints neon signs with more vibrancy or compositional creativity than Jerry Misko. Now, if only I could ever afford one of his damn pieces.
