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Punk Rock Bowling report: Monday at the festival

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Flogging Molly performs during the final night of the 18th annual Punk Rock Bowling & Music Festival, Monday May 30, 2016, in downtown Las Vegas.
Photo: Christopher DeVargas
Jason Bracelin

Like so many plastic cups of Pabst, Punk Rock Bowling came to an end on Monday. Here’s a few notes to remember the day by, because, let’s face it, we know some of you need ‘em.

4:40 p.m.: The only thing more welcome at PRB than, say, an open bar, is an overcast sky. Cloud coverage provides merciful relief from the merciless sun as Italy’s Giuda tears it up with glittery, punchy jams as short as the beer lines thanks to the late-showing crowd. It looks like it might rain, even, which is nature’s way of cleansing the gutter punk.

5:10 p.m.: “I bet you can’t wait for this one to be over,” Off With Their Heads’ chatty frontman Ryan Young says by way of kicking off their heartfelt set of heartland punk. He then offers a little free marketing for one of the fest’s sponsors. “Give it up for the Fireball tent, America’s greatest resource … for assholes.”

5:35 p.m.: Off With Their Heads’ Young prefaces the band’s searing, emotionally raw “Die Today,” a song about spending the rent on drugs and trying to make life work somehow, by talking about how he still gets crap thrown at him to this day. Perfectly on cue, someone in the crowd whips a roll of toilet paper at the stage.

2016 Punk Rock Bowling: Day 3

6:15 p.m.: “If you were into this record when it came out, your kids are with a babysitter today,” Strung Out bassist Chris Aiken says prior to the band lunging into a tune from the group’s second record, 1996’s Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues. That album once soundtracked the Warped Tour, back in the day. Two decades later, it sounds right at home at the grown-up equivalent of that annual summer outing.

6:50 p.m.: Favorite overhead quote of the day, from a gray-bearded fellow with an admirable beer gut that juts out like a locomotive’s cattle catcher: “I got that Fireball in me,” he tells his lady, who radiates irritation like the asphalt does heat. “It’s like fuel.” Fuel for what? See the 5:10 p.m. entry above.

7:15: Hooks and elbows fly alike as D.C. melodic punk forebears Dag Nasty tear into “All Ages Show.” “How old is old?,” frontman Shawn Brown asks on the song in question, a rhetorical question seeing as how well this bunch has aged. Great set from these not-so-grizzled vets, who still rank among Dischord Record’s finest as exhibited by new tune “Cold Heart,” performed with said heart pinned to their shirt sleeves.

7:45 p.m.: Contemplate purchasing “The boobs are real, the smile is fake” T-shirt from the PRB vendor bazaar, one of the rare places where you can score a plaid Ramones kiddie jumper, that elusive Tank Girl back patch and/or a sweet turquoise dress adorned with pink elephants, one of which a tipsy-looking fellow teeters around in on this day.

8:00 p.m.: SoCal’s Face To Face begin their performance with a storming “Resignation,” the opening salvo from their seminal, self-titled third effort, an album of muscular emotiveness. The band commemorates the record’s 20th anniversary by playing it in its entirety. “I know you guys are burnt out and hungover,” singer/guitarist Trever Keith astutely observes at one point, but still, the crowd musters a late burst of energy to lend their weary, whiskeyed voices to a loud sing-along of “Complicated.”

9:10 p.m.: Flogging Molly frontman Dave King takes the stage, beer in hand, to let the PRB hordes know that he feels their pain. “We had a good idea to spend the day here yesterday, and as always Las Vegas, you kicked our ass.” And so, the band returns the favor, their accordion-, banjo- and fiddle-powered Irish folk punk ending the fest in raucous, celebratory fashion. King leads by example, kicking up his knees and guzzling his brew. “I never thought I’d say this, but this Guinness is purely medicinal,” he announces. Mental note: Tell the boss as much when nursing said beverage at work the next day.

9:20 p.m. There’s always plenty of youngins in the crowd at PRB, their parents introducing the next generation of attendees to the fest before kindergarten even. But during Flogging Molly’s set, seldom have so many children been seen hoisted in the air by mom and dad. “Look at all these lovely kids atop their parents’ shoulders,” King gushes. “This is what punk rock is all about.”

9:25 p.m.: Flogging Molly launches into a new tune, “The Hand of John L. Sullivan,” a roaring, rousing ode to the legendary bare-knuckle boxing badass that registers kind of like the Celt equivalent of Jim Croce’s “Bad Bad Leroy Brown.” “Let’s live the good life until the last goodbye,” King sings to a crowd that’s spent the past few days doing just that.

And so, goodbye.

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