Las Vegas Weekly

Close call

Rejavanate still brewing up music

It’s been a quiet week over at Rejavanate. Following a large brawl during a July 26 show featuring LA punk band Naked Aggression, the indie coffee haunt was rumored to have stopped booking concerts altogether. Fortunately for the Vegas all-ages scene, the music plays on … at least for now. “We didn’t want to take a risk,” Rejavanate co-owner Hercules Cummings says. “So we had to stop doing shows for the week.”

According to Cummings, at issue wasn’t the brawl, the broken glass or minor damage to vehicles caused in the melee (no one was injured or taken into custody). The estimated crowd of 150—83 over the lounge’s capacity—was the problem. “The fight could have happened anywhere; it could have happened in a golf course,” Cummings says. “We just had a bigger crowd [than usual].”

Because of the fight, however, Cummings says bands will now be considered more carefully before they are scheduled. “Bands will be booked based more on their reputations,” Cummings says. “Bands with bad reputations won’t be able to play here.”

Two shows slated for later this month—Orange County’s We Are the Arsenal with locals I Am the Thief and Aurora Falls on August 23 and I Am the Thief with locals Legends Never Die on August 26—are still on. “At least it didn’t happen inside,” Cummings says. –Aaron Thompson