Images: The Dillinger Escape Plan, Unfair Fight, A Friend A Foe June 12, 2015 at Beauty Bar

After a 24 hour binge of screamo and math-core blared through the speakers of my mom’s Prius, I was finally ready to live a night that probably should’ve been reserved for my 16 year old self. Las Vegas, having grown out of its scene phase alongside us 20-somethings, seems to rarely cater to any kind of nostalgia of the 00’s. Spare a Saves the Day concert here and a Brand New Concert there and then those five or so Taking Back Sunday concerts… and didn’t Built To Spill play here the other day? Alright, maybe Vegas doesn’t suck as bad as we want to believe. But dude, it does suck, I swear it does, where is the metalcore? Where is the screamo? Where did all those kids with the greasy swoop hair and skinny jeans go? I can’t tell where they usually are, but on this wondrous evening the mallcore ghosts of a bygone era swarmed their burial grounds.

Walking into a nearly empty Beauty Bar, I quickly realized that the show was going on outside instead of inside. I was pretty pissed. Most parts of me wanted to see bodies thrown through the weirdo 80s hair salon memorabilia and into the walls of the Beauty Bar shattering further the broken glass wall mosaics. I was bummed, but I definitely didn’t come to this show expecting to not be bummed by something.

Unfair Fight was shredding through the jams as I got into the back courtyard/auto salvage yard area of the Beauty Bar. The crowd visibly could care less if a band was playing or not, they chatted through the music as if it was ambience on some stereo at a party. Dan from Unfair Fight wasn’t gonna have it that way though. He hopped down into the crowd and made the gig feel like a real one. He pushed some dudes around and screamed UF’s punk songs like a punk boss. The songs were pretty rocking and the crowd eventually caught on a little bit. Unfair Fight wrapped up with the first song they ever wrote plus one other. I seriously hate that, like what’s the point of playing something outdated and likely unrepresentative of the musicians you’ve become??? When bands play their first songs ever it’s like “we wish we were still 16!”, “we don’t have enough quality music to share so here’s this!”. Anyways, I only really said that because the vocalist dude said something like “We don’t care what you think about our first song we wrote, we love it’s timelessness!” So there’s that! Unfair Fight gets a B+ for the show (significantly better than any other band I could imagine opening this show), go see them play again soon, hopefully they don’t play the first song they wrote ever again.

Something that I realized in between Unfair Fight and A Friend A Foe is that there are no bands in Vegas that could TRULY open up for Dillinger or any of the heavies of the 2000s. Sorry everyone, you had 15 years to prep and you failed. Where’s the metalcore???

OK, if everyone in the crowd hated that first band, then holy shit did they hate A Friend A Foe. The band wasn’t bad by any quantifiable means, but damn were they in the wrong place at the wrong time. Initially I wasn’t sure if a Linkin Park/ Of Mice and Men hybrid should ever play at a hipster bar in Vegas, but now I am certain that there is no reason for it, ever (yo, but if Linkin Park ever plays anywhere downtown, I’ll be there). Anyways, A Friend A Foe played some songs, the vocals were too loud, samples too loud, sampled, back-up vocals(?) too loud, guitars just above inaudible, just everything a mess, and all anyone was looking for was some good old screamo. Johnny, the screamer gave an earnest attempt at crowd interaction, but got no replies to his yell of “How are you guys doing tonighthtttt?!” I don’t really know what else to say, but better luck next time dudes. I don’t think anyone could’ve done a better job for what that’s worth.

Now with all of the button up, collared shirt wearing local bands out of the way the crowd surged in anticipation. One could even ask were the opening bands necessary? I would say yes, let the kids jam, why not? Plus it gives everyone else more time/reasons to drink.

Dillinger disregarded any awkward energy lingering around the Beauty Bar and stirred up the storm. By the end of “Prancer,” Greg was already on top of the PA column orchestrating his first dive. Everyone fucking ate it up. This is metalcore! This is it! The mosh pit rocked back and forth in the 100 degree air that someone must’ve kept in a jar from Extreme Thing 2008. The cool thing about the gig, was that there were no kids, all 21 year olds getting drunk and head banding! Then there was Dillinger on the stage, thrashing all hell loose, shredding through some new ones and old ones. Some songs that sounded like Creed or something, and then one that sounded like Limp Bizkit. Holy shit was that one sick. Most of the set was spent hopping between spastic HHLL/TN12LLY passages to sparse proggy jazz things. It was all so badass, proficient, but like emo still. The guitarist on stage right, the only member I could see the whole time was doing these crazy guitar throws, and windmill things all while shredding. You couldn’t really hear him playing, since the sound kinda sucked, but you knew it was good. Both he and the screamer got on top of that PA as often as they could and then would jump off right at the breakdown, *nernernerner DUNDUN neernernerneerner* it was insane.

Greg, who’s the screamer of this band, was saying how they’ve never played a bunch of the stuff that they ended up playing (stuff from miss machine/calculating infinity). Dang, it means so much that they would share that night with us, a bunch of drunken guys and girls who used to be 16. It’s actually crazy to think that being 16 is the one thing that brought all those people together to have the best screamo night of their lives. Wow. Come back to Vegas again, The Dillinger Escape Plan, I want to see all the greasy swoop haircuts and facial piercings glistening in the sweaty metalcore moonlight for just one more night. Now I’m 16 again, and I am not too worried about anything. I’m going to go listen to “43% Burnt” for 5 years.

-Joel Kirschenbaum

Photos by Aaron Mattern | https://www.flickr.com/photos/akmofoto/