Viva Ska Vegas returned for its third year this past weekend, moving from its previous location at the Henderson Events Center to the more intimate Fremont Country Club. ...

Last year, Viva Ska Vegas emerged as a spiritual successor to the early 2000s mega Ska Summit event. Like its “big brother,” the festival strived to celebrate the legacy of ska, but on a much smaller scale. Taking place in the shaded grounds of the Henderson Events Center, the festival has become the most relaxed of any I attend in a given year, with big groups of people eager to happily sing and dance under the canopy. ...

One of my favorite shows we’ve ever had here in Vegas was the Ska Summit, an early aside to the Extreme Thing that saw ska bands big and small from every era ascend onto Desert Breeze Park for a day of fun and skanking. Almost a decade later, the people behind last month’s Viva Ska Vegas managed to recapture much of that same fun, albeit on a smaller scale (which will hopefully grow larger if this becomes an annual event). Once again ska fans were treated to a day of horns and upstrokes from a number of national, international and local ska bands that covered every wave of ska, giving everyone something to look forward to. ...