Neon Reverb’s 10th-anniversary edition will feature a lineup topped by two well-known indie-rock names: Wavves and No Age.
San Diego garage-pop quartet Wavves, which last played Las Vegas in 2013 (headlining the Cosmopolitan’s Boulevard Pool), released its sixth album You’re Welcome last May.
LA noise-rock duo No Age, which last performed here in 2009 (opening for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the Pearl inside the Palms), released fourth LP Snares Like a Haircut—its first in five years—last month.
Those bands will be among about 50 participating in the Downtown music festival, scheduled for March 8-11 at the Bunkhouse Saloon, Beauty Bar, Backstage Bar & Billiards, Artifice and Cornish Pasty.
Festival passes, priced at $60, are on sale now at neonreverb.com. Tickets for individual shows will be available later for $15 apiece.
Neon Reverb has unveiled the majority of its touring acts. Along with Wavves and No Age, The Blasters, Mt. Joy, U.S. Girls, La Luz, Spindrift, Jesika Von Rabbit, Sego, Part Time, Girl Ray, Tight Fright, Burning Palms, Monsterwatch, Mega Ran, None Like Joshua and Isaac Rother and the Phantoms have been confirmed.
The festival’s local lineup, along with a few more touring acts, will be announced soon, according to Reverb organizers.
“I feel really good about the lineup, especially since we got Wavves on the roster,” says festival co-founder James Woodbridge, who will once again run the event alongside Jason Aragon, Ronald Corso and Mike Henry. “I’ve wanted Wavves to play Neon Reverb since 2010, when [third album] King of the Beach came out, and then they got too big and too expensive. But they decided they wanted to route to South by Southwest this year, which made it possible for us to get them.”
For its 13th edition since 2008, Neon Reverb will revive a tradition from its early years, inviting outside promoters to help book some of the festival’s showcases. Brian Saliba (Smash Magazine/Bogus Productions), Patrick “Pulsar” Trout (Beauty Bar), Ryan Pardey (Bunkhouse), Tsvetalina Stefanova (Bad Moon Booking), Brian Moy (Dirty Rock and Roll Dance Party) and Steven Matview (Punks in Vegas) have all signed on to help, with Matview spearheading an all-ages gig planned for Cornish Pasty.
“In some ways it’s like a return to Reverb past,” Woodbridge says. “With everything that happened in the fall, after the [Route 91 Harvest] shooting, there was this showing of the real community that exists here. A lot of us knew it was there, but maybe the outside world didn’t. That made me think that the community should be celebrated, since it has always been one of the most important facets of Neon Reverb.”
Overall, Woodbridge says, Neon Reverb’s core mission remains unchanged. “It has always been about connecting the local music community with the rest of the world and with each other. It’s interesting to reflect that it’s been going on for 10 years, but we’d like to keep going and grow it into it a larger vehicle. Hopefully we’ll be able to make that happen.”
Taken from:
-Spencer Patterson
Las Vegas Weekly, Fri, Feb 16, 2018 (2:22 p.m.)