Music Monday! Extreme Thing 2012

By Matt Hanks
Best of Las Vegas
Photo By JoAnne Vitale

Every spring, Desert Breeze Park is filled with thousands of people and is transformed into a multi-stage, day-long music event called Extreme Thing. The first details of this year’s lineup of local and national bands were announced Friday.

Extreme Thing takes place March 31 from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., when more than 30 bands and DJs take to stages spread out across Desert Breeze Park in the Southwest part of the valley. The list of bands spans many different genres, including rock, metal, punk and dubstep. A few of the announced bands include Underoath, Unwritten Law, Everlast, and Falling in Reverse, led by former Escape the Fate singer Ronnie Radke. The full lineup can be found on Extreme Thing’s
website.

Funding for the event, put on by the Clark County Department of Parks and Recreation, comes from sponsors and ticket sales. Brian Saliba, special events supervisor for Clark County Parks and Recreation, which puts on the event, has been involved with Extreme Thing since its first incarnation in 2001. He and two others from the Parks and Recreation department plan and execute the event.

“On Friday, we announced 90 percent of the bands that will be performing at the show,” Saliba said. “Our goal is to diversify the musical list. This year’s lineup is significantly different than what we have had out there previously. We wanted to make sure there is something for everyone. The high school kids are very familiar with these bands, but if you are college aged or older, you will probably walk away with a few new bands you like.”

According to Saliba, Extreme Thing grows in size and attendance
consistently each year by 20 percent. With more than 25,000 attendees in 2011, Saliba has added a fifth stage to the event.

“We’ll have two main stages and two side stages,” Saliba said. “The fifth one will be a dubstep stage. We’ve never done this before. It will be all DJs on that stage. We’ll have more announcements down the road as we get things locked down, but we’re excited about it.”

Las Vegas resident Steve Valenzuela, 22, was one of the 25,000 in attendance at last year’s Extreme Thing.

“It was a huge thing,” Valenzuela said. “It was fun to see the bands I wanted to see. It was fun to see the bands I didn’t go to see, too. People got pretty rowdy by the end, but they would still help up someone who got knocked down. It’s the rules.”

One of the signatures of Extreme Thing is its inclusion of local
bands. Local tobacco-free activist group XPOZ hosts a stage with only local bands.

“XPOZ has been a part of Extreme Thing for the past four or five
years,” Saliba said. “It gives local bands the opportunity to play in front of tens of thousands of people. Most local bands never get to experience that in their career.”

In addition to the day-long concerts, there is a whole other side to Extreme Thing.

Desert Breeze Park has one of the Las Vegas valley’s largest skate parks. Clark County will be partnering with Vegas Am Jam, in which amateur skateboarders and BMX bikers compete with each other. There will also be pro wrestling by Adrenaline Unleashed.

Saliba plans on announcing the official sponsors and a few new bands in the two months leading up to Extreme Thing. We’ll keep you posted as the news comes in.

Tickets can be bought online now or at the door on the day of the show. Desert Breeze Park is located at 8275 Spring Mountain Road.