Images: Last Call, Koji, Allison Weiss, Lee Corey Oswald & more October 3, 2014 at Tipsy Coffee House

After Last Call’s sparsely attended December 3, 2013 gig with Living with Lions at The Knight Hall, it was unclear if they would ever play again. The ending of “Thank you, we’ve been Last Call” and the subsequent 10 months of silence left many to believe that they’d joined the long list of great Vegas bands eligible for our “Vegas Archive” series. According to frontman Austin Jeffers, “We were exhausted. I was engaged and my now wife and I were having a hard time coping with the distance. [Drummer] Adam Blasco was looking for a new creative outlook with his graphic design and [former guitarist] Ryan Stokke was getting serious about his job and girlfriend as well. I love Punk ethics, I love making music and I LOVEEEEEE seeing the world with my close friends. Still…life is long, there are a ton of goals that I and my bandmates have past Last Call. So we were essentially slowed by life in order to get into a faster ‘civilian’ lane.”

But the civilian lane wasn’t meant to last. According to Jeffers, “After some time, Adam and I started talking about music as usual and it just started sparking an interest, so we ran with it. We brought in whoever could spare some time to take it semi-serious and ended up back on the train. When the Koji show ended up being booked through Fidel (who is in the band now, again) we decided ‘hey, let’s step back out there.’ Boom…. so…. Last Call.”

Blasco and Jeffers have been the most consistent presence in Last Call over the years, with the rest of the lineup always existing in a state of flux. This show at Tipsy Coffee House was the debut of the most recent lineup, which features Dog Years era bassist Kyle Peterson and original Last Call guitarist and Take Care/Acid Rain/Dreamcatchers’ Fidel Romero back in the fold, with Jeffers taking up second guitar. So this gig felt like the beginning of a new era for the band. While the large Knight Hall floor looked dishearteningly bare at their December show, the cozy coffee shop filled with about 50 fans, ready to sing along to “Glassel St.” and “Bones,” felt just right.

This kind of live setting, with kids jumping over each other for a chance to sing into Jeffers’ mic, is where Last Call thrives. “It’s strange playing live, It’s a freak experience that swells and ebbs,” says Jeffers. “It’s full of anxiety and adrenaline and then there are these moments where you can’t feel any better ever. It’s insane and wonderful.” But the passing of time is not lost on him. “I see kids (adults now) that I used to sit with in a shanty room in a junkyard next to a woman’s prison (Hammer House). Now we’re all getting married, having kids, getting vasectomies or having vasectomies reversed or in jail oooorrrrr in jail with vasectomies. Still… when I’m seeing those people at a show remembering the beauty, it strikes me as a wonderful time capsule.”

Nothing beats hearing those old songs I love in a room full of kids screaming along, but I was more excited to hear the two new songs in Last Call’s setlist. The band’s lyrics have always been personal and oftentimes dealt with a yearning to grow up but not quite being equipped to do that yet. How do the band members’ new stations in life impact the lyrics? Jeffers says “I love getting older, I love it. I have a wife and a new, more positive view of my own worth outside of LC. There will still be songs about heartbreak, about life, and about depression. Those things never leave. Adam and I always have a way of finding some #sadboy stuff in our existence, heh. Still, I’ve never been more ready for life, more willing to experience it. So this new record will be around the idea of that in my life and Adam’s perspective on it as well. There may new recorded material before you all know it. Soonish.”

Of course, a big part of the reason that Last Call chose this show as their comeback is their relationship with former tourmate singer/songwriter Koji, who was this tour’s headliner with Allison Weiss and Lee Corey Oswald in tow. I can say with all confidence that Koji is one of the best and most natural performers in the punk scene today. He expertly wove spoken word and crowd participation into a set that featured “Peacemaker” and “Breaking and Broken” (a song he said he recorded with Lauren Hill’s mic) with heartfelt stories of becoming disillusioned with the scene during Warped and rediscovering his passion during the pre-Warped Vegas house show and this tour. When Koji spoke about DIY ethics and the perils of consumerism – you could hear a pin drop in the room. You really felt and believed everything he said – like coming into the punk scene because it was the first place he felt safe and had a voice – because you know he lives it.

This was the last night on the Koji tour for fellow singer/songwriter Allison Weiss, who is one of the most delightful performers I’ve seen in some time, transforming nervous energy into charming banter. She described her music as “songs that moms like, because it’s fun but also edgy” and tell us that her band name – Allison Weiss, was chosen by her own mother who named her after a keychain. Allison had obvious fans in the room, singing along to tracks like “Making It Up” and “Say What You Mean,” and I’m going to go ahead and guarantee that anyone who didn’t know her music left her set a fan. Indie punks Lee Corey Oswald, who described themselves as outsiders on the tour as the only full band act, were an absolute treat to see in a live setting. Songs like “Because I Can,” and “You’re Willing” were great to hear live, but the highlight of their set came with their spot-on cover of Weezer’s “Pink Triangle,” which they dedicated to Weiss. LCO did a better job with the song than Weezer did on their Pinkerton tour a few years ago and if you closed your eyes, you’d believe it was really Rivers up there.

This show ended up being more like three mini shows, with locals Last Call and Jesse Pino bookending the Koji, Allison Weiss, Lee Corey Oswald tour, with a pop punk tour featuring Firestarter and Post Season sandwiched in the middle. Pino is always a pleasure to see live, and he was playing sans-band on this night. He is just about the perfect fit for the Koji/Weiss side of the tour and hopefully he picked up a few new fans. Post Season had one of the best hustles I can think of in recent memory, with their vocalist running around the Tipsy parking lot gathering stragglers to come watch his band even as his bandmates were halfway through the first song. They, along with the insanely catchy Firestarter, fell more on the New Found Glory/Drive-Thru side of the pop punk spectrum and as such, had heads bouncing along with the one fan in the room who knew all the words.

-Emily Matview

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