Recycled Percussion pumps up production

Recycled Percussion always had a point of distinction none of the other 100 or so shows on the Strip could claim: the ability to play along, with each audience member drumming on an old pan or hubcap.

Now the group is making a bigger-budget play for respectability, so a unique show deserves a unique compliment: Parts of it are so interesting now that you will just sit and watch, and let your drumstick rest.

The quartet draws its name from the fact that it drums on plastic trash barrels and the like, instead of manufactured kits. It’s seriously loud, largely word-free and family friendly.

If you already know something about Recycled, it’s easy to trace the guitar licks and turntable scratching to the group’s origins on the college circuit, before it landed in Las Vegas on the momentum of a 2009 run on “America’s Got Talent.”

What we’ve seen from Recycled so far drew more faint praise of “good for an afternoon show” or “good to have something besides ‘Tournament of Kings’ for restless boys.”

But this year’s jump from the Tropicana to The Quad moves Recycled from afternoons to evenings, with higher expectations and head-to-head competition with the big shows.

New producer David Saxe responded to the challenge by pumping up the production design, giving Recycled a slick, clublike feel, with big panels of lighting and text displays pulsating in sync with the drumming.

Improvements along those lines are spread throughout, but one prominent example: The group already had an old bus that divides in half, the top raising to reveal the guys drumming away inside. Now the piece begins with the bus as a projection surface for a barrage of video images.

It’s the content that’s a bit trickier. The challenge here is to expand the pace and variety of the show, without making Recycled lose focus of its key ingredients.

It’s not easy, judging by Saxe’s welcome speech at the official opening last week, when he joked about “strangling each other for months and months.”

For better or worse, one new bit sums up both the group’s creativity and its adolescent humor: Ryan Vezina comes out in a big inflated bodysuit, topples over and bounces back to the “I get knocked down, but I get up again” strains of Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping.”

But one prominent change really gives the show some needed dimension. Group founder Justin Spencer greets the audience early on and offers a condensed story of his fascination with drumming — complete with childhood photos and a sentimental story about his grandmother — all in a few minutes.

Other changes may seem like sideways progress.

An audience participation bit offers embarrassing fun by making the recruits wear monkey masks.

But in the past they were challenged to do rhythm-related things that were more to the theme of the show.

And the showstopper — Spencer and Vezina drumming on metal ladders as they climb and jump — has now become an “encore.” Makes sense, right?

Not if it comes right after the segment that gets the crowd on its feet to drum along to a countdown of classic rock songs.

No way we’re going to sit down and pay attention again once we’re up and drumming.

Still, it finally feels as though the lads (which include DJ Todd Griffin and new-ish guitarist Matt Bowman) have truly arrived on the Strip. The rest is just a matter of tweaking and improving as they go, now that Recycled has the right tools to work with.

And yes, usually that’s a metaphor. But for a group that makes a whole showpiece out of welder’s sparks, it’s literal.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@
reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.