Las Rageous makes strong debut in downtown Las Vegas

As the fellow in red suspenders slapped his butt to the beat, the party got started in earnest.

The song was about dancing all night, and Jesse Hughes was leading by example, the Eagles of Death Metal frontman wagging his backside at the crowd massed on the corner of Bridger Avenue and Third Street, the stoplights still working as Hughes green-lit some curbside boogying.

“I got this feeling and it’s deep in my bah-tee,” he sang with the lip-quavering lust of an inked-up Elvis Presley. “It gives me wiggles and it makes my rump shake.”

Hughes served as a sort of human defibrillator Saturday, jolting the good times to life as Eagles of Death Metal’s hip-shaking rock ’n’ roll lubricated the second night of the two-day Las Rageous music festival in sweat and hormones.

This new fest, which got off to a strong start over the weekend, luring thousands to the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center and adjacent streets, delivered a broad array of bombast, from prog to metalcore, thrash to radio rock, the festival’s two stages bracketed by food trucks and fire twirlers in hot pants (on Friday, at least).

What supplied the cohesion among it all?

Adam Dutkiewicz, guitarist for emotive metallers Killswitch Engage, supplied the answer in the form of a question.

“Are you drinking?” he asked from the stage Friday, clad in short-shorts and a headband, looking like a reserve guard for the Flint Tropics. “I’m drinking.”

Las Rageous’ revelrous vibe was the common denominator that united this diffuse lineup.

There were the old-schoolers, like an invigorated-sounding Anthrax, whose machine-gun riffing anchored frontman Joey Belladonna’s soaring vocals, the latter sounding as powerful as they did when “Diff’rent Strokes” was still in prime time.

Belladonna joined Killswitch Engage earlier Friday during their set-ending cover of Dio’s “Holy Diver,” one of several standout guest spots over the weekend, another being Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds ripping leads with Eagles of Death Metal during their set-opening “I Only Want You.”

Speaking of Mastodon, a band skilled at musical head fakes, their performance Saturday may have been Las Rageous’ best. Experiencing them live is kind of like being buckled into a roller coaster while blindfolded: You have no idea what’s coming next, but it’s quite the ride for as long as it lasts. Heavily mining their new album “Emperor of Sand,” the band crafted dense yet buoyant jams, peppered with sudden key changes and swelling choruses, a gnashing of the musical teeth that culminated in plenty of a satisfied grins.

On Friday, Coheed and Cambria did something similar, mating progressive arrangements and wonky lyrics with pop-punk hooks that made their tunes go down easy yet hit hard.

The Las Rageous lineup wasn’t all so thrilling, as evidenced by Of Mice & Men’s middling metalcore, Breaking Benjamin’s pro forma radio rock and All That Remains’ cloying jingoism.

What unified all those bands was that they strove for a blend of accessibility and artistic cred but did so in forced, formulaic ways.

But Las Rageous’ Saturday night headliner, Avenged Sevenfold, demonstrated that this could be done without sticking so closely to what has become a heavily plagiarized hard rock script — to a lesser extent, so did Godsmack, who topped the bill Friday with a pyro-heavy blowout.

Playing their first U.S. show since the release of their most recent album, “The Stage,” Avenged Sevenfold brought all the bells and whistles of a big arena rock production, with massive video screens squirming with pupil-widening visuals.

And yet, in song, Avenged Sevenfold tend to live up to all the pomp they generate on stage.

Whether airing the knotty title track to their latest record or the more streamlined snarl of “Paradigm,” they proved themselves to be adept at taking big ideas and embedding them in even bigger sounding songs.

Amid all these elaborate turns, however, sometimes the simple pleasures were the best — and certainly the most fun — which takes us back to Eagles of Death Metal.

“I like to strut my stuffing down on easy street,” Hughes peacocked early on in the band’s set. “So completely without complexity.”

And strut he did, Bridger Avenue in place of said boulevard.

Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @JasonBracelin on Twitter.