The cultural nostalgia cycle generally runs in 15-year cycles. Music embraced by 20-year-olds gets replaced by equal and opposite trends as adulting sets in, but the bands we grew up with remain the best as times change. Eventually the tribes find a way to reunify, and for fans of the most predominant post-millennium phenomenon in rock, Emo Nite (now with a monthly residency at Resorts World Las Vegas) is Valhalla.
There are venues with nights dedicated to emo all over the country with varying degrees of presentation and professionalism. The desire to congregate and sing along to choruses from Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance has been palpable to people like Emo Nite co-founders T.J. Petracca and Morgan Freed for nearly a decade. Along with early partner Babs Szabo, the Emo Nite crew cultivated a party from L.A. dive bar beginnings in 2014 to its current headquarters at Hollywood’s Avalon nightclub.
Now Freed and Petracca take Emo Nite on tour across North America. In October 2021, they produced an ambitious three-day Emo Nite Vegas Vacation featuring acts such as Avril Lavigne, Machine Gun Kelly and Mod Sun. The debut weekend of the residency at Resorts World’s Zouk Nightclub may have been the saving grace of the wind-whipped When We Were Young festival, giving emo fans a place to gravitate to after Day One of the festival was canceled.
“I think a lot of people were positive about it,” says Petracca. “I got a lot of messages from people saying, ‘Thank you for saving my weekend.’ There were people just going on Saturday ending up having nothing to do and they went to the nightclub show, and that (wound) up being the highlight of their trip.”
Due to bands pumped up but unable to perform on the first date of WWWY, Emo Nite was able to add more guests to the show and “deliver a more special performance for everybody,” says Petracca. “We had four special guests from the bands hop up and perform songs during our DJ set.”
Those guests included Martin Johnson from Boys Like Girls and Tyson Ritter from The All-American Rejects, perhaps setting a precedent for more unexpected guests to show up at Zouk and hype the crowds than originally envisioned. Emo Nite’s growth has been organic from the get-go, fueled by passion more than calculation. Travis Barker, Blackbear and Bring Me The Horizon have had notable appearances at Emo Nite L.A. Post Malone performing a My Chemical Romance cover there in June 2017 became a milestone in his upward trajectory.
With an extended schedule of monthly Zouk parties, Petracca and Freed have a chance to evolve an Emo Nite Las Vegas with its own flavor, where the faithful fly in from all over the country and beyond to commune regularly, reunite, reminisce and meet new friends.
The shared musical bond is almost spiritual. “I feel like it’s all based on good moral ground,” says Freed. “That’s the big thing. We’re not a religious organization, but we could be.”
Resorts World, 10 p.m. doors Nov. 23, starting at $25, 21+. zoukgrouplv.com
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