✦Weekender✦ Secret market | Dark hike | Weepy classical | Stoner flicks | Nerf war | Soap punk | Game swap 🕹️
FROM CANDLE-LIT classical to paint-splashed art auctions to cookie monster death metal, here's what made The List this weekend. Cheers! – Andrew Kiraly 🤍
🕯️ Friday July 25
- A few years back, I strapped into my seat at the Dance in the Desert Festival, expecting, oh, you know, sure, perfectly enjoyable if staid segments of the average person's idea of "dance." But I actually had a low-key OMG moment at how bracing and interpretively outré much of it was. (Through Saturday) 7p, Summerlin Library
- Is it likely that, in this lifetime, you're ever going to get a chance to see the original System of a Down kicking up a mosh maelstrom in a small, sweaty club? Probably not – but System of a Clown offers a surprisingly tight approximation. (Must like clowns.) 8p, Backstage Bar & Billiards
- I hella enjoyed Candlelight: The Best of Hans Zimmer when I caught it a year or so ago. Tbh, the Listeso Quartet could've just continuously played "Time" from Inception for an hour and I would've been perfectly content all a-swoon and discreetly dabbing my eyes. Tickets left as I clack this! 830p, The Industrial
Also Friday ➤
Night time is literally the right time for this Night Hike at Ice Age National Monument ✦ Opportunity Village is decking the halls at this Christmas in July Pop Up Shop with deeply discounted Xmas decor ✦ Grab your trunks and suck in that dad gut for the DJ-dosed Night Swim at the Rouge Room ✦ Kill 'em softly with your Pro Gelfire Mythic Auto-Rifle at Hendo's Glow-in-the-Dark Nerf War in a 10k square-foot arena.
👉 ICYMI, here's a sack o' dance anarchy, bibliophilic imbibing, and open-air wrestling to round out your weekend:
Andrew Kiraly
🧼 Saturday July 26
- If your home copy of Settlers of Catan is frayed, battered, and bloodstained beyond use from too many friendship-testing kitchen-table battles, you might pick up a replacement on the cheap at the Board Game Flea Market, boasting hundreds of new and gently used titles. (If you spy a copy of Wingspan or Gloomhaven, text me!) 10a, Knight & Day Games
- Not only can you catch a vibe, as it were, at Sink or Swim Live Art Auction with artists arting all artsy in real time, but you can haul their fresh creations – think urban-inflected, graffiti-inspired, whimsy-enriched – home for as little $200 a pop. 6p, Area 15
- To think that The SoapGirls got their start busking jingles and hawking soap in South Africa; today the towering sisters are a snarly power-punk duo whose songs flash with gritty hooks at every whiplash turn. 7p, Dive Bar
- Argh, it's just too richly, categorically perfect not to list: They're showing Half-Baked at a weed dispensary and, yes, you can chimney-rip massive, cerebrum-erasing bong hits of Neon Gummi Kush every time Jim Breuer's eyebrows dance in bemused stoner confusion. 730p, Nuwu Cannabis
Also Saturday ➤
Toast Oscar Goodman's 86th year with 86-cent martinis at The Mob Museum ✦ Game on the go at the RTF Mobile Gaming Truck at Spring Valley Library – just beware that any exposure to Slay the Spire may cause drooling lifelong addiction ✦ Come to Lee Canyon for Music on the Mountain, stay for, hello, the "mountain beer garden" ✦ Usually known for cosplay parties, Millennium Fandom Bar is dyeing its bangs and cranking the amps for We Are All Emo Here ✦ Have a neigh-borly time at this month's 702 Market, now with horse petting zoo.
🛋️ Sunday July 27
- Now, technically, the Las Vegas Market is open strictly and exclusively to wholesale furniture and home decor dealers and buyers for doing their fancy-pants wheeling and dealing. But if you've got a friend-of-a-friend insider hookup or, say, a preternatural facility for using the dark arts of InDesign to produce convincing fake credentials, I highly suggest leveraging them for a sneak-in. You'll be treated to a bracing day of endless home design inspo (and seething envy). 8a, World Market Center
- A little art, a little nature – ingredients for a perfect Sunday morning. Alina Lindquist and Bobbie Ann Howell are covering the art part in this Nevada, P.S. I Love You postcard activity, while the splendor of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge does the rest. 9a, Corn Creek Visitor Center
- You've heard of blues jams, funk jams, and rock jams, but what about a classical jam? The Las Vegas Frets & Strings Society Open Mic invites classically oriented strummers to bring their stringy skills to this melodic matinee. 2p, Clark County Library
- Usually known for posting up nonstop punk rawk, the Double Down takes a refreshing left turn with this one: San Diego's Black Oak Hymnal, a gothic balladeer trio dripping with earnest urgency. Yes, there is a mandolin. 10p, Double Down Saloon
Also Sunday ➤
Get tipsy with tomes at the Boozy Book Fair at CraftHaus Brewery ✦ The uber-cute Gather House hosts a cool local maker micro-market called Just Vibes ✦ If you want a bitter, tongue-blackening taste of the valley's death metal underground – and who doesn't? – venture to Henderson's Eagle Aerie Hall for Bodybox.
🙏 Hope you have the raddest weekend. Thanks for your support! – Andrew Kiraly 🤍
