Images: letlive., Stolas, A Friend A Foe, There is No Us July 13, 2015 at Vinyl Las Vegas

A cool trick for when you go to the Hard Rock Hotel is to park in front of the garage by all of the vans and trailers of touring bands. All you have to do is get out, move the cones and then park wherever. It’s great because you don’t have to drive around the garage looking for a spot closest to some elevator and then after that – take that elevator down, down, down to the first floor, like hellloooo, just park in front. You’ll save time and you’ll feel cool.

Sadly, despite my cool parking situation, I couldn’t make it to the venue in time to see 2 of the 3 locals who were chosen to jam with soul punk legends Letlive. There Is No Us and A Friend, A Foe, did their thing whether I was there or not.

Vegas superheroes, Stolas, or as Letlive’s frontman Jason Butler calls them, “The Mighty Stolas,” sure did the damn thing too. They began with Sergio Medina dancing hard enough for all four members, and everyone else playing equally as intensely, just not dancing as hard. They played mostly from their latest album, which displays their dynamic style better than their older stuff. The old stuff they did play they tweaked as to keep it interesting to themselves, and in turn everyone in attendance. You gotta give them props for playing so many shows and touring so much that switching up parts in songs is a necessary thing to keep them alive and breathing. From R.J. Reynolds’s endless bass walking to Sergio’s frantic stage walking, Stolas’s set was nuts (and good), but still only pre-workout compared to Letlive’s unabashed 45 minute freak out.

Letlive did a hundred pushups and then spun out on stage like a frenzied bat out of hell. Head banging and screeching without much else in between. The craziest of the lot was the singer Jason. Constantly shaking in emotional fits, pouring bottles of water on stage and sliding around in the puddles like a babe at a summer lake party, and then literally ripping apart the stage and wrapping it around his neck, he rampaged around stirring the show people into a pit of sweat.

The boys jammed some of their oldies; “Muther,” “The Sick, Sick, 6.8 Billion” and “Day 54.” These are songs that have been quoted as being as important as The Refused The Shape of Punk to Come. That is crazy, but watching those gut-wrenching songs being gut-wrenched out on stage is enough to make one believe. Letlive also jammed some songs from their latest album The Blackest Beautiful, and then one that is yet to be released. While I’m not as fond of the new stuff, it seemed that every song was received as well as possible by the hordes of people in the crowd.

As the people were reacting to the band’s output of crazy energy, the band returned it again tenfold. In retrospect, it seems like Jason should have barely had enough time to breathe, yet he still managed to spit inspirational words to the crowd several times. Most notably, after walking all around the venue, he stood atop bar stools in the back and encouraged everyone to do whatever they want to do in life, and then if anyone tells you to stop, you need to just keep doing it. “Because once they’re gone, it’s just you and I.” Who really knows what that means? But he said it, He said it standing on some tables at the back of the Vinyl. He said it, shrugged and then jumped into the hands of twenty some angels, carrying him home.

Then the show ended when the venue said so. Everyone cleared out from the hallways when the guards told them to. Everyone went home.

-Joel Kirschenbaum

Photos by Tylor Thuirer | https://www.flickr.com/photos/thuirermedia/