Last Saturday, Las Vegas played host to the bizarre spectacle – even for a place where you can get a back massage at a roulette table while a team of acrobats performs above you – of elder emos drifting like a blanket of mist around some of the most elaborate casinos on earth.
As the first day of the long-awaited When We Were Young Festival was cancelled at the 11th hour due to dangerously high winds, 60,000 fans were left stranded in Nevada’s adult Disneyland with nothing to do but mince about the strip, drinking frozen margaritas out of enormous novelty cups and waiting for something to happen.
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Fortunately, things did happen. Multiple intimate side shows popped up to fill the space in people’s schedules and hearts. The All-American Rejects played a free show at the tiny Soulbelly BBQ in the Arts District, The Wonder Years played with La Dispute, Mom Jeans and Sweet Pill at Rockstar Bar & Grill (unclear why the vast majority of Vegas’ non-casino-based venues revolve around grilled meats), while Bring Me The Horizon, Knocked Loose and Landon (son of Travis) Barker pooled together for a show at the Pearl Theatre, creating enormous queues around the revered Palms resort.
Meanwhile, thousands more flocked to the legendary Fremont Street to drown their sorrows, watch a country band play Blink-182 covers and Marshmello DJ mainstream emo hits. Others parked up at the Bellagio fountains and mournfully marvelled at the displays of aquatic elegance at 15 minute intervals.
It was quite a scene. Lines of anxious-looking people in checkerboard Vans snaked between lads on stag do’s smashing the Playboy slot machines and families queuing for a $36.99 all you can eat buffet; the city dotted with bereft alt kids sitting cross-legged on the floor outside luxury hotels or queuing for seven hours to hear “Swing, Swing” at a BBQ restaurant. All in all, a very sad, strange and chaotic 24 hours in Las Vegas.
Fortunately, VICE photographer Christopher Bethell was there to capture it all.
