Independence Day celebrations include comedy, concerts and, of course, fireworks

Las Vegans have Nye County. David Alan Grier had Canada.

Some holiday traditions are universal, such as long, covert drives to buy outlaw bottle rockets and cherry bombs.

"I bought contraband fireworks like drugs for most of my youth," says Grier, whose stand-up date today at Mandalay Bay leads off a bombastic July 4 weekend on the Strip. Growing up in Detroit, "You could buy anything. It was through some dude with the crazy uncle, who drove all the boys up to Canada in the station wagon."

Grier, who turned 55 on Wednesday, is part of the generation with all-American memories of unwrapping dense layers of mysterious Asian newsprint in a Black Cat, to get to the gunpowder at the core.

"For hours, my brother and I, we took every bit of gunpowder out of boxes of fireworks and stuffed them in bottles. Basically, you're making a bomb then. I would probably be on the terrorist watch list now," he says.

But there were casualties. "My brother almost blew his hand off with a cherry bomb. They were throwing them out the attic window. Of course it drops, he picks it up -- boom! It blows up, his hand was smoking and bloody." He tried to tell their mother he cut himself with a pen knife. "We heard about that for years."

Safer distractions await Las Vegas this Independence Day weekend. Grier goes back to being the funny guy Adam Carolla and others know as "DAG" after a dramatic, Tony-nominated turn on Broadway, playing a lawyer in David Mamet's "Race."

"It was weird trying to do stand-up while I was in New York," Grier says, because his goal in the play was to "strip away all those elements of me and my persona that people come to expect, think they know, or have seen me do as a comic or as a funny actor."

When he went back to talking about himself in a comedy club, "It just took my head out of everything I've been working on."

For prices and more specific details on the following Fourth of July events, see the Showguide and Diversions listings:

New Place to Get Put Down by a Tall Famous Guy

Brad Garrett remembers the Fourth of July in Oxnard, Calif., as "one of the few times growing up when all of my family got together. What was great was you could hardly hear the arguing because of the fireworks."

The action was all in the backyard, with Uncle Alan arranging a line of fireworks and then setting them off with his cigarette. "Jews don't camp (to see the big municipal displays). We're not going to sit at the beach to do that."

Garrett is a logical choice to headline the first weekend of Brad Garrett's Comedy Club at the Tropicana. "I was always fascinated by Vegas. I was coming here as a teenager with my family," says the 50-year-old best known for "Everybody Loves Raymond." "As quirky or as corny as it sounds, it's always been a dream."

But be warned. In his post-"Raymond" stand-up, Garrett has morphed into a younger Don Rickles. He should have easy pickings in the small club setting.

"I love breaking that fourth wall. I think when people pay to see somebody they've watched on TV for years, they love it when (they can say), 'Oh my God, Brad Garrett ripped into my husband.' It's something they take home with them."

Big-name Tickets

Kenny Chesney creates indoor fireworks today and Saturday by playing the only small place he bothers with anymore, The Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel.

Comedian Mike Epps seems to be out to make a tradition of July 4 in Las Vegas, playing The Joint for a second consecutive year on Sunday.

If you screamed at the Backstreet Boys back in the day, maybe your swimsuit bod will still catch their eyes when the lads swoon the swim-up stage at Mandalay Bay Beach today.

Explosives and old-fashioned fun

■ Fireworks both today and Saturday liven up the not-so-bitter state rivalry between the Las Vegas 51s and the Reno Aces at Cashman Field.

■ The Fremont Street Experience gets an early start on fireworks with a display today by the Golden Nugget. On the ground is a 9 p.m. Saturday concert by the Little River Band and periodic performances by the disco revue "Fremont Street Fever" and the AC/DC tribute band Highway to Hell.

■ Love a parade? The Summerlin Council Patriotic Parade boasts more than 60 entries Saturday morning. It starts at 9 a.m. at the corner of Hillpointe Road and Hills Center Drive in The Trails division, and travels south on Hills Center Drive.

■ No fireworks, just "Red, White & Tunes" at the Springs Preserve at 8 p.m. Saturday, with the UNLV Community Band and barbershop group Ready Or Not.

■ Note to tourists: That big fireworks display from one end of the Strip to the other is on New Year's Eve (but please come back). The Independence Day fireworks are more isolated and some aren't even announced in advance. Hotels that will commit include Mandalay Bay and Caesars Palace, at about 9 p.m. Caesars also complicates the New Year's confusion by offering a ski and snowboard show outdoors on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. That's right, they're putting a four-story ski jump out in front. That's Vegas for you.

Not officially on the Strip, but certainly visible from hotel rooms with an Eastern view, is a Las Vegas Hilton fireworks show around 9:30 p.m. on the 4th.

■ Don't worry about whether one neighborhood gets treated better than another. Proof that the fireworks are the same at five Station Casinos can be had in a synchronized musical simulcast on KOAS-FM, 105.7 and KVGS-FM, 107.9.

The 9 p.m. Sunday displays go off above Aliante Station, Fiesta Rancho, Green Valley Ranch, Red Rock Resort and Texas Station.

■ The Las Vegas Philharmonic is sitting this year out, but the Henderson Symphony Orchestra will stir some patriotic strings. It's part of an evening at Basic High School, 400 North Palo Verde Drive, which includes the Randy Anderson Band and 9 p.m. fireworks.

■ The Village Lake Las Vegas will have miniature flags for the first 3,000 people who show up to watch the Stinson Brothers at 6 p.m. before fireworks at 9 p.m.

■ Boulder City splits a traditionally long day into two this year. The main street (actually Nevada Way) parade is on Saturday morning and the fireworks at Veterans Memorial Park are at 9 p.m. Sunday. Today and Saturday also bring the patriotic sounds of the Red Mountain Choir and youth choir in ticketed concerts.

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