Dickies, Avengers, Agent Orange - Las Vegas Country Saloon, Sunday May 27, 2012, Punk Rock Bowling

We decided to venture out to the wilds of punk-rock-dom for Melanie's birthday this year and this show seems to be the best overall of the bunch. So many of the festival shows out here don't draw nearly as many people as they would in most any other city, so we were surprised when we arrived at the Country Saloon and found a line wrapped around Fremont Street and halfway down the street. So, we missed the opening band (which apparently changed, so I'm not sure even who it ended up being) but got there just as Agent Orange was starting. Truthfully I was never a big fan of AO - by the time the OC punk bands started gaining popularity I was getting bored with the fast'n'furious punk scene - but the packed crowd loved 'em and Melanie dug hearing "Bloodstains", even though the version they did was, according to her, their "speed metal version" of the song.

Up next, though, was the amazing Avengers, who I always did love! They were part of the first wave of west coast punk bands and their style and songs are more up my r'n'r alley. Here, their sound was by far the best, with an amazing guitar tone and Penelope's terrific vocals. Each member was highly animated, as well, especially their bassist (sorry - I'm not sure who is currently in the group) who was bouncing around like a ping pong ball! They did all of their best tunes and were in terrific form. Highly recommended!

Closing the night was the always-fun punk-pop of the Dickies. The overall sound was a little off for them and they were overly loud, but the band seemed tight and Leonard can still pull off his insane vocal stylings! Leonard had his bag full of props (puppets, masks, blow-up dolls, etc.) but, otherwise, visually they were a little haggard looking. None-the-less, the songs were there (pretty much everything you could have asked for, except for the Spiderman theme), the playing was great and the audience went nutz the entire time!

Fun night to celebrate the early hours of Melanie's birthday! And she even got to see Stuart!