Las Vegas Weekly

Worth getting there early

Photo: Erin Broadley

A quality support act can make for a cool surprise, but it’s even better showing up for a show knowing the opener will start the night off right. On August 19—a Wednesday, of all things—you can do just that, times two.

At the House of Blues, stoner-rock legends the Melvins are opening for Down. With upward of 20 albums in their 20-plus-year catalog, Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover and their mates have earned the right to headline this one, but 30 or 40 minutes of Melvins is a lot better than a Lysol spray in the eye, right?

Meanwhile (and by meanwhile, we mean literally meanwhile), over at the Joint, up-and-comers The Whigs will be warming up the crowd for Kings of Leon. The Athens, Georgia, garage-rockers have actually been on the scene since the early 2000s, but last year’s Mission Control put them on the brink of breaking out, so it might not be long before a lot of people are paying a lot of money to see someone else open for them.

Of course, with any opener, you never know exactly when they might hit the stage, so just be sure to be there when the lights go down.