As the sunset over the Vegoose music festival at Sam Boyd Stadium Saturday night, I found myself thinking one thing: I feel sorry for those who have to clean this up.
Thousands of brightly dressed festival-goers crammed Star Nursery Field for the Halloween extravaganza, that invaded University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ football stadium eight miles east of the strip.
Upon entering the parking lot, I realized that this festival was going to be different than my typical music festival.
Before I made it through the dirt parking lot, I encountered a woman with armpits more hairy than mine hawking sodas, a man urinating in pure daylight and an impromptu hippie swap meet specializing in drug paraphernalia and tie-dyed objects. This was going to be an interesting weekend.
As I made my way through the gates and overlooked the map, I realized the layout of the festival was aesthetically pleasing.
It was spread very nicely over the large grass field. The two medium-sized stages, “Snake Eyes” and “Joker’s Wild,” were adjacent to each other with the main stage, “Double Down,” located at the opposite end of the field. The “Cabaret Clubs Tent” was located in between.
As I wondered around looking at all the booths, I noticed the funky sounds of The Coup coming from a tent. This Epitaph Records band, from Oakland, was one of the first bands to play, but had several people wonder with its new take on classic funk music.
The 45-minute set was filled with lots of good beats and crazy sounds to dance to. Front man Boots Riley has been a Communism activist since a young age, and his radical agenda comes through strongly on the 2006 release, “Pick a Bigger Weapon.”
Pam the Funkstress rounds out the duo, but she doesn’t tour with the band. Instead Riley has a complete backing band which did an excellent job bringing The Coup’s best songs to life.
The next band I caught was The Raconteurs. This band has been trying to avoid the term “super group” since hitting the music scene in 2005, but with a roster that includes The White Stripes’ Jack White and power-pop solo artist Brendan Benson, it’s a hard label to avoid.
Kicking off its hour-long set with “Intimate Secretary,” the new single “Level,” and rock radio favorite “Steady As She Goes,” White and company didn’t help refute that label any less.
White and Benson alternated vocals and guitar seamlessly with bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler, keeping the rhythm section up to par. An acoustic “Together” slowed things down a bit, but after that, The Raconteurs closed the set with the rest of the “Broken Boy Soldiers” album.
By the time Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley took the adjacent stage 10 minutes later, the air was already thick with the pungent odor of marijuana. Marley is the youngest son of reggae legend Bob Marley and his most recent “Welcome to Jamrock” album has earned him slots on some of the biggest festivals this year including Weenie Roast, Coachella and Bonnaroo.
Hitting the stage with an entire crew of musicians, back-up singers and a guy who just waves the Jamaican flag, Marley drew one of the largest crowds of the night. The smoke made it a little hard for this reporter to recall the exact set, but the 75-minute set drew heavily from his most recent release including “In 2 Deep,” “Road to Zion” featuring a cameo from Jurassic 5’s Chali 2na and ending with the huge single “Welcome to Jamrock.”
Experimental progressive rock group The Mars Volta was up next. The eight-person band opened its set with an instrumental song that took up more than half of the 90-minute set they were given. The jam session got an occasional squeak from vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala and caused much of the big crowd to wonder off into other areas of the festival.
I watched for a little over an hour before I headed to the Cabaret Clubs Tent to see Jurassic 5. The Los Angeles-based hip-hop crew released its fourth studio album “Feedback” to positive reviews. I only got to watch a half hour of the set, but playing hit after hit with huge stage presence caused the crowd to overflow the tent.
“I can honestly say there is no where else in the world I would rather be right now,” The Killers front man Brandon Flowers told the crowd.
It was a homecoming for the Las Vegas natives, and the synth-rock band brought quite a production. Kicking off with the title track from the newest release “Sam’s Town,” Flowers and company followed with brief “Enterlude” which led into the new single “When You Were Young.”
With an intricate backdrop and fancy light show, The Killers made fans squeal with delight with old hits “Somebody Told Me” and “Smile Like You Mean It.”
It was my first time seeing The Killers, and I was not overly impressed. While the band sounded good, the energy on stage was rather lethargic and Flowers didn’t seem to engage with his hometown crowd very well.
The 16-song set was filled out with a good mix of tracks from both albums including “Mr. Brightside,” “Glamorous Indie Rock and Roll,” “Bling (Confessions of a King” and “For Reasons Unknown).”
That wrapped up my first day at the festival. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were playing the “Double Down” stage next, but with the long hours of the festival and the temperature dropping to what seemed like freezing, I decided to go home.
Day one was an amazing display of talented musicians, and I hoped the second day would be just as good.
Look out for Vegoose Day 2 review coming soon.
