The Mapes, Gentlemen Prefer Blood, Odd Robot, Sheiks of Neptune - the Dive Bar, Sunday Sept 3, 2017

Closing out a fairly slow Labor Day weekend in Las Vegas, I laboriously got myself out of the house and across town to the Dive Bar to see what damage the Mapes would inflict this time, to check out some new bands and to hang with some friends.

I still can't quite put my finger on what the Sheiks of Neptune are all about. One thing I am sure of is that they are LOUD - one of the loudest bands in town, without a doubt. The volume is such that it is difficult to distinguish the different instruments and even the songs themselves. In the snippets that I could differentiate, I could hear some good playing by the violinist, some goofy lyrics, plenty of screamin' from everyone, and a bit of hard core rhythms, all played with a movie running behind them along with sound effect backing tracks. They are quite visual, especially the frenetic lead singer, but I do hope to see them in a setting where I can get a better idea of what they are doing musically.

Fullerton, California's Odd Robot followed with a set of Green Day inspired punk-pop, that was simplistic but good'n'tight, played with plenty of energy and good vocals. Not particularly visual, but solid songwriting.

Another punk-pop trio, Gentlemen Prefer Blood, gave more melodic punk rock with a crazed drummer propelling the proceedings frantically. Again, nothing to speak of optically, but more decent high energy pop.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the Mapes - crazed antics abound with these costumed characters as they blast through their set of lewd, sloppy, indecent but melodic punk rock. With a new clown on bass, they were actually tighter than many times that I have seen them (as he actually played the entire set and didn't pass out), but were still wacky and even though the audience were not as out of control as in previous times, donut holes were thrown (powdered sugar, for maximum messiness), toilet paper traversed the air, bruises abounded and cymbals were set aflame. They definitely win the award for the goofiest band in town!