At last, all rock that glitters here is not old

FINALLY, this is a great weekend to be a rock snob in Vegas, thanks to the Vegoose festival. Today’s offerings include chances to see the sort of critically acclaimed bands like Spoon, the Arcade Fire and Sleater-Kinney that traditionally pass right on by the Entertainment Capital of the World.

“There is really this kind of indie rock circuit that we’ve done, and it takes you from L.A. to Phoenix and then you start heading to the Midwest,” says Corin Tucker, Sleater-Kinney guitarist and vocalist. So in more than a decade of recording and touring, her Washington state punk band has never played here before today’s show at Sam Boyd Stadium. “There hasn’t been a venue in Las Vegas that has been appropriate for us over the years. There really hasn’t been an audience.”

“Artsy bands don’t do well here,” is the blunt assessment of AJ Gross, who has been involved in promoting a wide range of concerts, from Willie Nelson to Snoop, at venues on and off the Strip over the last decade.

But that may be changing. Max McAndrew, the talent buyer for House of Blues in Las Vegas, which is among the venues hosting Vegoose’s shows, thinks so. HOB, in Mandalay Bay, for a time was the only venue to offer alternative music on the Strip. “The town has really become more a point on bands’ West Coast routing over the past three years. We seem to finally have some momentum in terms in indie rock artists,” McAndrew says.

Tucker, pondering Sleater-Kinney’s Las Vegas debut in the festival promoted by AC Entertainment and Superfly Presents, who are best known for the annual Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee, suggests: “I think that it will be really interesting to take the indie rock scene and put it inside Las Vegas. It will be really kind of bizarre to see how it all comes together.”

Bizarre, yes; and complicated, like many things here.

For instance, the Empire Ballroom, featuring private booths and VIP bottle service, held its grand opening celebrations last weekend starting with a show by punk stalwarts Bad Religion. Just before going onstage, singer Greg Graffin fretted about the entire experience, especially the $35 ticket price and that no one under 21 was allowed into the club.

“I’m worried about that,” Graffin says. “One of the things that still makes us viable is that the people that are excluded from this show still turn up in droves to see Bad Religion. I can’t overstate that this is not a typical Bad Religion show.”

So what has changed in Las Vegas these past few years? Graffin’s simple explanation: “The demographic who will pay for a rock show is getting older.”

For that very reason, this is a golden era for the sort of classic rock bands that once would have lost credibility by being associated with Las Vegas. After all, their boomer audience is here now and wants to see them. The curse of fat Elvis seems finally to have lifted, and no one worries anymore about the stigma of going Vegas. Among the last famous holdouts was Bruce Springsteen, who finally debuted at the MGM in 2000.

For ‘70s acts of all stripes, now seems to be the time to cash in on Vegas. Last week Aerosmith released “Rockin’ the Joint: Live at the Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas”; earlier this month, hard as it is to believe, the New York Dolls played a private party at Tao in the Venetian. Also, consider that Elton John’s “The Red Piano” is the most expensive production show ticket in town, beating not only all of the Cirque shows but even his hostess at Caesars, Celine Dion. Next month, Grandmaster Flash officially becomes one of the resident DJs at Pure (Caesars Palace) and Tangerine (Treasure Island).

Not that every ‘70s icon can score here now. When Lou Reed finally debuted in Vegas in 2003, the godfather of punk had probably not faced anything like us since his days in the Velvet Underground. Sales were so terrible that Hard Rock employees went table to table in Mr. Lucky’s, the casino’s cafe, offering free tickets and attempting to sing a few bars of “Walk on the Wild Side” to lure oblivious customers. Maybe they should have tried “I Love You Suzanne”? Neither was a song his Louness chose to play that night.

At the time, Reed’s most recent original work was “The Raven,” a two-disc sleeping pill interpreting the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe. Reed wound up storming offstage when the crowd refused to be attentive to a new song and would not return to play until the Hard Rock closed the back bar. My guess is that Uncle Lou will not be invited back.

While Vegas may finally be cool again, it’s never going to be a place for the cooler-than-thou.

Halloween haunts

SINCE this town is always more interested in a holiday weekend than an actual holiday, most Halloween celebrations have already taken place. Still, a couple of worthy events remain. Tonight -- in a pairing that seems inevitable -- onetime hometown stripper Jenna Jameson and current girl-around-town TV star Jenny McCarthy cohost the “Body English Halloween Party” at the Hard Rock. And Monday, one of the oldest benefits in Las Vegas (which now supports Golden Rainbow, an organization that assists people living with HIV in the Las Vegas area), the 39th Annual Beaux Arts Ball, returns to Studio 54. A local favorite, the ball features dancing and DJs but is famous for its skits performed and created by cast members from shows up and down the Strip, including Chippendales, “Folies Bergeres,” “Jubilee,” “We Will Rock You,” “La Cage” and “Fantasy,” as well as for an outrageous costume contest.

A bad dream

IN a sign of its success, Ka, the Cirque du Soleil show at MGM, has released its souvenir soundtrack, composed by Rene Dupere. By contrast, there is no scheduled release date for my favorite current score: Benoit Jutras’ music for “Le Reve” at Wynn. The show itself has received scathing reviews, and I agree that it is nothing but a mediocrity compared with Franco Dragone’s work with Cirque. But Jutras (who was also responsible for the music in “O”) has written a magnificent theme, and it is a pity that the music is so bound up in the fate of “Le Reve.”

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Strip teases

This feature on entertainment and life in Las Vegas will appear every other Sunday. For more on what’s happening on and off the Strip, see the blog latimes.com/movablebuffet on latimes.com.