✦Weekender✦ Street eats | Funny guns | Sports dorks | Paint fight | Thumb crusher | Kill Chewbacca? | Book sale 📚
FROM SAUCY CHICKEN-WING riots to light saber nerd wars to keyed-up jazz duos, here's what made The List this weekend. Cheers! – Andrew Kiraly 🤍
🏟️ Friday August 1
- I'm not going to get too spun up about What It Means that a completely irony-free sports bar is grand-opening tonight in the Arts District. I'll focus instead on the fact that The Stadium serves a drink called the Mezcal Punchout that siren-sings to my liver on an undeniable cellular level. 6p, The Stadium
- So happy to see Liam Neeson branching out into comedic acting from his standard role of stressed-out-dad-with-a-9mm. At this screening of The Naked Gun, the Piecing It Together Podcast luminaries hang out afterwards for a critty postmortem, with your insights invited. 6p, Downtown Cinemas
- This one's a flat-out treat: Josh Reed & Annie Booth. He's an accomplished trumpeter from Reno. She's a renowned pianist from Colorado, most recently known for a stellar album of Beatles covers that gives me poignant tingles all over. Beautiful music together = guaranteed. (Through Saturday) 715p, Vic's Las Vegas
- Can an artist make a masterpiece in 20 minutes? You'll find out at the Beyond the Strip Art Battle during First Friday, in which eight artists become a blurry fugue of frantic molten creativity as they whip up contest-worthy artworks in little over a quarter of an hour. 9p, Arts Factory
Also Friday ➤
What the truck?! Exactly: Monster Jam Freestyle Mania at the Thomas & Mack Center ✦ '80s/'90s throwback night Time Capsule at the German-American Social Club is a time warp inside a time warp ✦ Las Vegas Books is cleaning out its storage space with a big-ass book sale through Sunday ✦ Of course there's an athletic geek subculture of light-saber warriors battling at the Flamingo this weekend.
👉 ICYMI, here's a sack o' funny, frazzled moms, symphonic explosions, and an infinity amount of chicken wings:
Andrew Kiraly
🐾 Saturday August 2
- It's a day for the dogs at Paws, Pup Cups & Booties – but their devoted humans will have plenty of fun socializing amid all the cuddly canine chaos. Be sure to snag a free pair of dog booties for those hot summer sidewalks. 9a, Kellogg Zaher Dog Park
- The purgative spiritual and gastrointestinal qualities of a shameless, sporadic food-truck bacchanal are not to be denied, and Eat the Streets is sure to have – in fried, grilled, or roasted form – what your viscera craves. 6p, Fantastic Indoor Swap Meet
- There are poets of the academia-and-obscure-journal variety, and then there are poets of the bellowing-from-the-heart-at-a-coffeehouse-open-mic-with-a-crusty-chapbook-clutched-in-hand variety. The free-range scribes and vagabond visionaries winding up The Corn Belt, Rust Belt, Serpentine Belt Tour embody the latter – and it includes one of my favorite itinerant zen roadmeat poets who sporadically touches ground in Vegas, James Norman. 6p, Grouchy John's
- The standard conception of '80s new-wave band Devo is that of merrily quirky art-popsters reveling in second-gear light agitprop. But the story of the band (fun fact: from Akron, Ohio!) is much more layered, thoughtful, and mischievous than that. Devo by Chris Smith (director of the heartbreakingly funny American Movie) peeks beneath the stylized flower-pot hats. 930p, The Beverly Theater
Also Saturday ➤
If the grit, grimy neon, and desperation of Vegas had a sound, it would be The Dirty Hooks, releasing a new album at Swan Dive ✦ Drag queens pay tribute to song queens at Diva Royale at Notoriety ✦ Voulez-vous écouter le groupe punk français Komptoir Chaos avec moi ce soir au Dive Bar? ✦ The magically mischievous Bad Faerie Ball at The Lexi wets its appetite with a niaiads, nixies, and nymphs theme.
🎺 Sunday August 3
- Extroverted bookworms who also love silent reading will want to dogear Silent Book Club. It's an hour of reading bookended with social mingling. Pro tip: Be sure to nom through the menu at the Springs Preserve's revived eatery, now operated by the culinary masterminds behind Bronze Café. 10a, Bronze Café at Springs Preserve
- It wouldn't be fair to describe The Pentagogical Brass Quintet as a mere brass cover band. With a solid 15 years under their valves, they're rightfully praised for bringing a head-turning level of interpretive precision to their covers of Barry Manilow, Billy Joel, Carole King, and more. 3p, West Charleston Library
- Short of quaffing her very ectoplasmic essence from an alchemist's phial, this is probably the best way to consume the essence of Dolly Parton: the song-and-supper combo Dinner with Dolly by Kelly Vohnn. 5p, The Composers Room
Also Sunday ➤
Did you know you can use an app to form a posse to hunt down Chewbacca at the Buckskin Cliff Shadows Trailhead I guess? ✦ Haunted Brunch at The Composers room sounds charmingly low-effort but there's a possible cheese/camp factor that nudges me to list it ✦ School night? Bah! Study up for Emo Night at Oddfellows.
🙏 Hope you have the raddest weekend. Thanks for your support! – Andrew Kiraly 🤍
