Music’s ability to connect people is obvious. As soon as you hear someone likes the same artist as you or you have the same karaoke song or grew up with the same favorite album on repeat, there’s that instant undeniable bonding feeling. But with emo music, it’s different. The best way to explain liking emo music to someone else is to take that bonding feeling and amplify it times a thousand. The thread of commonality becomes this deep rooted soul connection when you meet someone who also likes emo music. It’s a feeling of I understand you. I know what you went through and no matter how different we are, we get each other. Because if you listened to emo music, you were emotional as fuck and that’s a hard thing to be as an adult but it’s even worse when you’re an emotional kid or teen and angry or sad all the time and don’t know how to handle it and don’t realize yet that there’s nothing wrong with you and more importantly, you’re not the only one feeling this way. So, we can all agree, us emo kids, we went through it in one way or another.
Since being a Hot-Topic-clad, Warped-Tour-attending emo kid in the early 2000s, the emo genre has taken on many iterations and it would be exhaustive for me to even begin to breakdown what is or what is emo. There’s enough of that argument from the beginning of time on myspace bulletins and xanga blog posts that will gladly do that for you. Emo and what emo music is and isn’t is a controversial conversation, even to this day. If someone loves something enough, they want to gate keep it. They want to protect it. While I can respect that, I mostly think the argument is divisive for no reason when we all just love the music and should be bonding over it rather than claiming ownership over it and what it contains. And what I’m really glad is that Emo Nite LA, the host of the Emo Nite Vegas Vacation has made entire events doing that. They respectfully decided to say fuck that, let’s bring emo music to everyone and not only that, let’s bring in new artists to show how the genre is evolving and create this inclusive positive community of good, happy people who like sad as fuck music.
Emo Nite Vegas Vacation was Emo Nite LA’s biggest endeavor yet. I’ve been to several “emo nights” before this (and that is putting it lightly) but this was the first multi day emo festival or “emo vacation” that I’d ever heard of and my expectation going in was already pure adrenaline and excitement and a bit of fear that I wouldn’t even last the whole weekend without my body and/or voice quitting out on me. The lineup included a ton of favorites: Mayday Parade, Story of The Year, The Maine and so much more, original emo/punk queen Avril Lavigne was even set to make a headlining guest appearance and special guests were being announced up to days before each show. In between whatever bands were playing each day in traditional “emo nite” style were DJs playing a mix of emo/rock/alt/pop classics that had the crowd dancing, screaming or crying depending on the song. My Chemical Romance was played every single day to a crowd who could not be broken or defeated and carried on as loudly as they could and showing respect each night to what could be considered the emo anthem.
But I think the thing I appreciated most about this Vegas emo madness weekend was the inclusivity of the crowd. Look I don’t look like the typical emo kid (if there even is one) – I look more like what we would call in the early 2000s “a poser.” In fact, as a teenager, I was often called that and was left feeling embarrassed and insecure at shows by the music I loved because ironically, I didn’t “fit in” with someones else idea of alternative. But I never experienced any of that emo hierarchy bullshit at emo nite. Every single person I met was kind and just there to have a fun time. Whenever anyone crowd surfed, everyone was there to look out for each other and gang up on any security guard who weren’t looking out for flying bodies. It was easy to strike up friendships when all you had to look to the side while you’re waiting in line for a drink and suddenly you’re screaming the same Blink-182 lyrics in each others face. It didn’t matter if that person had a mohawk or a pink cardigan, this weekend we were all one. It was the best vibe at a music festival I’d ever been to and if you know anything about me, I’m all about the vibes.
After returning home, I think I finally understood we all came from all over the country to Vegas just to sing their hearts out to the same records we’ve all been listening to for years. I think that we were all these angsty angry little kids who’s main reason we were angry is because we felt so alone. We hated our parents, our small town, we were frustrated with the system, we didn’t want to go to school or follow rules. We wanted more than what life was giving us. We wanted to feel, we wanted to be told it was okay to feel, we wanted to be understood, but we wanted more than anything at the end of the day was to know that we’re not alone. That’s what the music did for us. It was a beacon of hope coming through our headphones that it might be okay if I’m not the only one feeling this way. And now being a part of this emo community, it’s the same feeling. It’s home. It’s someone saying to our past childhood self not only do I get what you went through, I went through it too! It’s looking at a whole crowd of drunk adults all screaming the same lyrics, the exact same lyrics that we all used to sing when we were miserable and crying and now we know we’re not alone and we were never alone and that is worth celebrating. While we’re now adults with adults problems and jobs, Emo Nite and Emo Nite Vegas allows us all to be alone together, no matter our differences.
Now I hope this doesn’t sound gatekeep-y because like Machine Gun Kelly said during his set “fuck that gatekeeping music shit, it’s 2021, we don’t do that anymore” and I fully agree. But I understand why someone could read this, scroll by and roll their eyes and just not really get it. (It’s almost as if you had a good, happy, uneventful childhood or high school experience or something.) But I can see why someone doesn’t get it. Why this is the music that means something to us and we get tattooed on our skins instead of like, I don’t know, Bowie or Radiohead or The Beatles. Why we all know all the lyrics to a band who hasn’t played a show in over five years. Why we’ll never ever get sick of that G note. (If you know, you know.) And honestly, that’s okay if you don’t fully get it – because thanks to Emo Nite, we now have each other.
It would be impossible for me to do a day by day review the entire event so I’m just gonna share my favorite things that happened each day.
NIGHT 1:
- Surprise guest appearance by Bowling For Soup and feeling the pure joy on their faces when they realized we all still knew the words to “Ohio (Come Back To Texas)”
- Losing my voice completely scream-singing during Mayday Parade
DAY 2:
- Dressing as a pirate and drinking rum the whole time since I love committing to a good theme.
- Captain Cuts doing a perfect M83 / Saves the Day mashup
NIGHT 2:
- Aaron Gillespie (The Used) being “the guy with the acoustic guitar at the rave”
- Almost crying with happiness during 3oh3 since I just felt so lucky to appreciate something that someone who I passed away would’ve loved to experience. Also them covering Smashmouth for no reason.
NIGHT 3:
- Avril Lavigne playing Sk8rboy making my childhood dreams come true.
- Machine Gun Kelly covering Paramore, climbing to the top of the stage and his whole “fuck this gatekeeping music shit, it’s 2021” monologue which I’m sure is on Tiktok by now
