A&E
Music
Stream of Musiek
Las Vegan Michael Williams is changing the way we watch concerts.
April 30th, 2013
Bottlerock is the next big music festival. The May 9-12 event is taking place in Napa Valley, California, and will feature more than 60 bands, three stages and, of course, food and wine. Highlights include the Black Keys, Kings of Leon, the Flaming Lips, Jane’s Addiction, Alabama Shakes, the Shins, Jackson Browne and Primus. Read more »
Music
Tour Buzz: Paramore, Marina and the Diamonds and Weezer
April 29th, 2013
In late 2010, brothers Josh and Zac Farro of Paramore—who play at the Joint on May 3 ($36)—announced that they were quitting the band they helped found. The band released a statement that emphasized the amicability of the split—“We want Josh and Zac to do something that makes them happy”—and all was well until the Farros released their own statement, which basically accused singer Hayley Williams of distorting reality and using the band as a launching pad for a solo career. Read more »
Music
Concert Review: The Men
The Bunkhouse Saloon, April 24
April 29th, 2013
It was the middle of the week, but that didn’t stop many people from packing the Bunkhouse to watch critically acclaimed quintet The Men perform. Not to be confused with the short-lived, late-’80s rock band, The Men are a relatively new indie punk outfit hailing from Brooklyn, New York. They went through some growing pains in their early career, kicking out a prominent member and redirecting their sound from thrash-core ambience to a more focused, lyrical structure. Now out with their fourth studio album, New Moon, the crew has solidified a well-deserved following. Read more »
Concert Review: Ira Glass
The Smith Center, April 27
April 29th, 2013
Ira Glass’s NPR radio program, This American Life, is tightly produced, approachable and meaningful, and Glass has been generating it week after week since 1995. On stage, Glass is just as brilliant: a blend of stand-up comedian, storyteller, professor and motivational pitchman. Read more »
Music
Jazz Roots: The American Songbook
The Smith Center, April 26
April 29th, 2013
In a scattered homage to a loosely defined idea in the latest installment of the Jazz Roots program, three world-class artists backed by UNLV’s jazz ensemble performed a selection from the generally agreed-upon canon of jazz-heavy popular music that defined the mid-20th century. Some novelty pieces, only tangentially connected to that theme, were also performed. Read more »
Music
Concert Review: Prince
The Joint, April 26
April 29th, 2013
“Thank u 4 a funky time,” Prince! Taking the stage with a classic high-collar Prince jacket and curly hair looking like he channeled Jimi Hendrix, The Purple One launched into “Let’s Go Crazy” with a packed house shouting an enthusiastic, “Oh no, let’s go!” along with him. Read more »
Remembering Kenny Kerr, Trailblazing Female Impersonator
April 29th, 2013
The way Kenny Kerr was—especially when he was Barbra Streisand—was emblematic of the campy-but-entertaining heart of Las Vegas. Our town’s father of female impersonators, Kerr died Sunday at age 60, leaving a legacy as the man who permanently planted the flag for that art form in this city. Read more »
Movies
'The Big Wedding' is a Big Bore
Like real weddings, you sit through the event for the sake of the actors involved
April 26th, 2013
The diversions in the ensemble comedy The Big Wedding (that title flat enough for you?) are strictly actor-related, which is usually the case at the movies. For example, the way Diane Keaton selects an asparagus spear at a country club buffet while delivering some dutiful expositional something or other. Or the rumpled panache with which Robert De Niro, playing the Keaton character’s ex-husband, adapts to a different sort of role than he’s used to playing: that of the unreliable horndog trying to get by on charm. Read more »
Movies
'Pain & Gain' is Jacked Up
This is director Michael Bay’s brain on steroids
April 26th, 2013
In America, you’re either a “doer” or a “don’t-er.” So says the hostile motivational speaker played by Ken Jeong, one of several supporting sleazebags tipping around the edges of director Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain. Read more »
