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Life Is Sh*t offers a fun, twisted take on the Life Is Beautiful festival

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Tsvetelina Stefanova

Walking up to the Dive Bar on Saturday evening, the venue is a 180-degree turn from the gigantic festival happening four miles away in the heart of Downtown. For one, it’s a hell of a lot darker—no bright artwork or festival lights to take selfies in front of, it’s (obviously) smaller and when I step inside I’m smacked in the face by a wall of smoke.

To my left stand a group of tall guys who, covered in leather and studs, look like a budget KISS. The crowd is full of bikers with large, tangled grey beards, 30-year-old punks and a handful of dudes in jean jackets. I walk back outside to scan the merch where stickers for the band Swamp Pussy--with very explicit drawings of what I can only describe as a “vagina fish”--line the table. Up on the wall, T-shirts read “Life Is Sh*t” in your choice of brown or gold poo-shaped font. They even come in a V-neck style for the ladies.

But more surprising than any of the turd and vag schwag is that everything is running on time, a feat when you consider the festival isn’t having shows outside as planned. And at 7:33 the crowd inside the smoky bar is awoken.

Illicitor might be one of the loudest bands I’ve ever seen. Not only do Bob Gates (guitar/vocals) and Zabi Naqshband (bass/vocals) have the deepest, throatiest, wall-shaking screams, their guitar playing is just as relentless. This isn’t just punk—it’s experimental hardcore with everything from metal and ska and post-hardcore woven in. As the singers take turns at the mic, competing for the most cutthroat howls, their hands race up and down the necks of their instruments, fingers tearing away at the strings while drummer Micah Malcom (of The Quitters) makes it look like a simple task keeping up with them—it isn’t.

“What’s up, sh*theads?” Gates says before dropping into the band’s first single, “City of Gold” a song that winds and spirals like a fiery, drunken Western fable. “When they came upon their horses/They looked up high and they searched down low/But never did find their city of gold,” screams Gates. Next is new song “Right on the Nose,” with slicker, hardcore-punk riffs and Naqshband on lead vocals. If, for a second, you had forgotten that life is, in fact, sh*t, Illicitor’s hellish, stormy energy and dark, meaty vocals kindly remind you with brazen doom.

Outside, I spend $2 on a “Sh*tty raffle” (they’re giving away a Pabst Blue Ribbon electric guitar at some point) and roam the parking lot to see what other sh*tty gems I’ve missed. Over on the sidewalk, scribbled in yellow chalk reads, “Life Is Beautiful community complaint line: 702-913-7043. Call them and let them know how much more fun you are having here not gentrifying Downtown Las Vegas.” And it really is the community line. I can only imagine how many people ended up drunk-dialing LIB before the night was over.

I wander in to catch up-and-coming local garage three-piece Headwinds, their lo-fi catalog hiding sweet hooks throughout each successive two-minute punk song. But approaching 9 p.m., I look down at my phone and realize Lionel Richie is playing at the exact same moment. It’s been fun, but I’ll never have the chance to see a Commodore in Downtown Las Vegas again. And in the least-punk exit anyone could possibly make, I say goodbye to Life Is Sh*t and sail on.

Tags: Music
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Leslie Ventura

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