Images: Extreme Thing 2014 feat. Taking Back Sunday, The Used and more March 29, 2014 at Desert Breeze Park

Prompting many Myspace users’ first post since last year’s event, Extreme Thing garnered internet hype within its unique subculture of 14-17 year old Las Vegans. Stereotypically attended by throngs of topless and nearly topless teens donning sharpie sprawled “free hugs” on their stomachs, Extreme Thing’s diversity is comparably the inverse to that of Coachella. Miles of swoop haircuts and “Asking Alexandria” shirts (are they playing this year?), dozens of mohawks, hundreds of Vans sneakers, and of course every kid from high school that you never wanted to see again. Surprisingly enough, an abundance of “normal” looking, button up wearing, business-casual-hair-cut having attendees were present, but maybe normal is the new scene? I mean they are at Extreme Thing-chella 2014, where upon entering you can’t help but feel a part of some great horrible undying monster.

Because of my career choice as a sandwich boy, I was “forced” to show up to the festival at its midpoint around 4:30. I copped a nice spot in a dirt lot facing the sidewalk of Durango, I ate an Italian sandwich in my car, it was beautiful out and everything was going great. I followed a couple wearing bracelets up and down both of their arms, they wore no shirts. They led me to a gate where a security guy stood telling people that the entrance was half a mile the other way… alrighty then.

Animals as Leaders was playing on the other side of the fence, so I just watched from there. They played a melodic blend of “djent,” lounge jazz and shred metal. The entire crowd stood wide eyed and dazed through a majority of their set, and at one point there was even a kid hardcore dancing. Since AAL played at the same time as Of Mice and Men, the crowd was shed of the younger concert goers and was predominantly greasy haired twenty year olds. They all gently head banged. AAL played the hits and also stuff from their new album, although all the songs blended together ambiguously, it was still overwhelmingly good. AAL’s lack of vocals worked to their advantage, since whoever was mixing for the main-stage kept putting vocals in a nasty place. All in all, Animals As Leaders had a ton of strings and breakdowns, they showed us that things can be extreme even without swoop hair and screaming. Many, many kudos to those guys.

At first Killswitch Engage seemed out of place (playing after Of Mice and Men and before Bring Me The Horizon), but they managed to win the crowd over with bangers like “Arms of Sorrow” and “My Curse.” They had their new-old vocalist Jesse Leach who did a good job performing the hits that were written without him. Some kids in front of me thought he sucked, oh well. The guitarist was wearing an orange bandana and sunglasses the whole time. He did some cool dance moves and made devil horns with his hands quite often, I was into that. His guitar also said “b33r!” (he likes beer). The bassist head-banged a lot and stuck his tongue out, he reminded me of those kids I don’t like. As I sang along I realized that most of the kids were just standing around, and for one moment in time I felt old. Thanks KSE. P.S. should’ve played that Dio cover.

Bring Me The Horizon played a five minute dubstep breakdown intro, and then played a five minute dubstep song? I got lost in whatever was going on. They had confetti cannons that blasted blue sparkly confetti into the pool next to the stage (Nice). Then they played “Diamonds Aren’t Forever,” which is probably their most popular song. It sounded good and the crowd loved it. I left to get a good crowd spot for Taking Back Sunday(duh). I know they would never do it, but am I wrong for wanting them to play that 2006 stuff like“Braille” and “Tell Slater?” It is great to see a hardworking band achieve this kind of success and still manage to progress into something different, but is adding a keyboard and dubstep over everything any kind of progress? Extreme Thing, where a jaded twenty year old can be a jaded twenty year old.

The Used was tight, though I thought that the vocals were way too high in the mix and Bert wasn’t doing as great as he used to. They played for a really long time. The most notable parts were when he said “power to the people right on” and then they covered part of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” prompting kids to sprint towards the crowd as if their life depended on it. The cover ended prematurely and went into a couple other covers one of which being Rage Against the Machines’ “Killing In The Name Of,” but he didn’t do the whammy pedal solo. The whammy pedal solo is the best part! It was all very underwhelming. They played the hits and there were people who were really into it, and that’s awesome.

Taking Back Sunday is the best band. All the hits, all the bangers, one hundred mic throws, no frills. They seriously kill it every time. Adam Lazzara pointed at me when he sang “You’ll never be happy” and it changed/ruined my life. If Adam ever told me that he would “take me anywhere that I wanna go” like he does in new hit “Beat Up Car,” I would say “Take me to the TBS show, holy cow!” Their new album comes highly recommended from me. Also, be sure to catch them anytime they’re in town and freak out.

At the end of the day we had to deal with some weird kids and some poor sound guys and some bands that weren’t our cup of tea, and we had to park a mile away and eat funnel cake for dinner (It’s not all bad), but now we don’t have to see any of those people until next year, (or ever!) That’s the glory of Extreme Thing, man. Plus, it’s only 20 bucks to walk around hating everything, you’d be a fool not to take up that offer.

– Joel Kirschenbaum

Photos by Hunter Wallace | https://www.flickr.com/photos/hunter_wallace/