Black Sheep Booking Showcases Montri, Citizens At Risk, No Surprises and Brings In Touring Acts Laminate and Orua at Rockstar Bar

LAS VEGAS, NV – On Thursday, October 20th, Blacksheep Booking, a Las Vegas-based booking agency, put on a concert at the Rockstar Bar located at the Las Vegas Golf Center across from Town Square with 5 quite incredible bands playing different styles of rock music from punk to grunge to jazz-fusion, and it made for one really fun night of music.

The concert was a showcase of both local Las Vegas talents (No Surprises, Citizens at Risk, Montri), and touring acts Laminate (Seattle) and Orua (Brazil).

First on the bill was No Surprises who was playing their first live show. Their sound is a bit of shoegaze alt-rock with some solid lead guitar solos.

The band didn’t appear to be nervous by any means, but their somber sounds made for a pretty calm mood throughout their set which was sort of mirrored by their stage presence. I definitely like their mood setting music, and it was pretty cool to see them getting their start on stage.

Next up was an absolute firecracker of a band, Laminate. 

This Seattle alt-grunge whirlwind immediately burst onto the stage and took things up a few notches with their uptempo more “in-your-face” type of rock. 

I thought they were absolutely awesome to see live. I even bought a shirt and vinyl from them. They have the energy of a band like At The Drive In or Rage Against the Machine with some serious chops on their respective instruments to make them sound great too.

Third up was the local Vegas band, Citizens At Risk who brought a good sized crowd, and they played to it pretty well. While local acts usually struggle to bring in fans, I think one thing that helped was that Citizens At Risk haven’t played a live show in a while. So, it was their first time on stage in a few months.

They had a pretty party-like vibe throughout their set, and even engaged with the crowd on multiple occasions.

After that came the Brazilian jazz-rock band Orua who are doing a national tour, and who just came off a run with Built to Spill. Much like No Surprises, Orua was a much more melodic, slow-paced set with incredibly professional musicianship.

It was kind of like a mix between Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, and jazz. Needless to say, if you are a musician, you can absolutely appreciate their sound and craft.

Last, but not least by any means was the Vegas act Montri.

Now, this was one band I had NO idea what to expect, because I had not actually heard their music before, and I gotta say, they are now one of my favorite local bands.

The music has good variation, excellent composition, and pretty personal songwriting from what I can tell.

It was a sound that I tried to describe to the band as a mix between Rush and Sunny Day Real Estate. The prog-like rhythm section (bass and drums) were mashed with the indie-rock guitar and vocals in a way that I truly had never heard before.

Even though the microphone kept falling down while lead singer Damon played guitar and fiddled back and forth with the mic stand, he made it look like cool and actually it didn't really even seem that noticeable except the one or two times he had to literally fasten the mic stand back together. 

I look forward to seeing this band play more and more in the coming months.

Blacksheep Booking puts on a lot of shows in town, and I don’t think I have ever felt so welcomed by bands and promoters alike at a show as I did at this one. I may not always get to go out to local shows (drawbacks of having a toddler), but when I do, I will be checking out more Blacksheep promotions and shows with bands from this bill, for sure.