Las Vegas Weekly

Happy Campers still smiling after all these years

Local punk band has watched its fans grow up

Punk’s not dead. Just ask the Happy Campers.

Photo: Bill Hughes

Punk’s not dead, just old, according to “Master J,” Happy Campers’ drummer Jason Losey. Tonight’s lineup at Boomer’s, featuring local punk bands The Dirty Panties, Betting on Tomorrow, The Quitters, Happy Campers and Wyoming-based Chase the Moment, seems to confirm it. The aging Saturday-night crowd brings back memories of 1998, when studded belts were hip and Unwritten Law was on top of its game.

“We used to play all-ages shows to high-school kids,” says Happy Campers singer Isaac Irvine, aka “Isaac Campa.” “Then everyone grew up, and now it’s all these 26-year-olds and they’re like, ‘I liked you guys when I was 16.’ I heard that, like, four times tonight.”

Scene staples for 14 years, the Campers have seen more than that coming of age in their day; they’ve also witnessed a string of shifting musical trends, which seemed to abandon their brand of punk somewhere along the way. But the trio has held its ground even as audiences have dwindled. “It can get hard,” Irvine concedes. “We had to refocus and look at what we’re doing. If we want to keep doing this, we have to come to terms with where we’re at now and just have fun with it.”

Tonight’s performance appears to achieve that goal—Irvine and bassist Gene Boothe’s between-song banter comes off like a comedy routine. But “Mean Gene” insists there’s also a serious mission at hand: “We’re trying to keep punk alive,” he says.