This week’s 5 best bets for live music in Las Vegas
Wheelchair Sports Camp
On paper, it initially reads like the kind of boast as common to hip-hop as luxury cars rented for video shoots only to be returned afterward. “No matter where I go, all eyes on me,” Kalyn Heffernan rhymes. “Everyone stop what you’re doing / The human’s moving / ‘ooh!’ and I breathe.” The song’s “Hard Out Here for a Gimp,” which chronicles the plight of being a wheelchair-bound little person who also happens to be gay. Heffernan’s not complaining, though. “I’m getting pretty good at this rappin’ and sitting down thing,” she announces at the beginning of said tune over tendrils of sax and a hiccuping beat, her confidence befitting the frontwoman of Denver’s self-professed “biggest smallest band.” See them with B Dolan, Hassan Hamilton and Lil Lavedy at 9 p.m. Friday at The Bunkhouse Saloon. Tickets are $10; call 702-381-5981.
Meshuggah
The opening salvo from “The Violent Sleep of Reason,” the new album from Swedish metallers Meshuggah, plows forth on rhythms so choppy, gnarled and dense, it sometimes sounds like two bands playing at once, battling it out in the studio in a war against restraint. The song in question, “Clockworks,” kick-starts yet another masterwork from these giants of progressive extreme metal. See them with Avatar at 8 p.m. Thursday at Brooklyn Bowl at The Linq. Tickets are $32.50; call 702-862-2695.
Opeth
Speaking of kick-ass Swedish metal bands, Opeth used to be one. This isn’t to suggest that this bunch has lost their mojo or anything; it’s just that they’ve pretty much ceased being a metal band. Gradually moving away from their progressive death metal roots from one album to the next, Opeth has gone full-on, organ-fired ’70s prog on their latest disc, “Sorceress,” an album evocative of a Scandinavian Jethro Tull. See them with The Sword at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Brooklyn Bowl at The Linq. Tickets are $35; call 702-862-2695.
Schoolboy Q
Like buddy Kendrick Lamar, rapper Schoolboy Q is a G-funk-weaned native of South Central L.A. whose repertoire is as psychedelic, candid and stoned as it is hard-edged, bracing and blustery. Class begins at 7 p.m. Sunday at Brooklyn Bowl at The Linq. Tickets are $42.50; call 702-862-2695.
Clutch
“Ten words or less, can you describe yourself?” Clutch frontman Neil Fallon asks on “Noble Savage,” a righteous blast of brick-hard boogie from the band’s latest record, “Psychic Warfare.” Fallon does it in six: “Unapologetic lifer for rock and roll.” That goes for all four of these guys. See Clutch, with Zakk Sabbath and Kyng, at 7 p.m. Saturday at Brooklyn Bowl at The Linq. Tickets are $29; call 702-862-2695.
