The Original Armageddon Girl

Feb 24
3 min read

The 2026 Armageddon laser tag tournament is only about four months away and if I were to refer to an Armageddon Girl competing in it this year I would likely be talking about Shadowdragon, Sakura, Shel, Mama Bear, Nobody, Woz or me…which is actually more female representation than I thought was going to be on this list! If I talk about the O.G. Armageddon Girls you may think of names like Blueflame, Wanezza or Harlequin. But this weekend during the course of my tag trip to Utah I met the original Armageddon Girl, Alta Dustin. No, she’s not a laser tag player, but she is an amazing musician whose song “Armageddon Girl” is one of my personal anthems (and you can read a laser tag message into it if you try hard enough…music can take on many interpretations) and seeing her perform live in Salt Lake City was an amazing experience!

This trip brought out my inner twelve year old, as that’s about the age I was when I was in junior high and discovered her first album, Shoulda Known Better. I never imagined that I’d have the chance to see her perform live! However, fate has a wonderful way of landing you right where you are supposed to be and as a result of the stars being perfectly aligned for this trip I had the best night watching her perform with her band, Alta ‘n da ‘tudes, which became the highlight of my entire weekend.

I’ll get to the laser tag part of the journey in my next few posts, but for now I am still reveling in the fact that a long overdue tag trip to go see a friend’s arena ended up resulting in this whole experience.

When I was young I didn’t know much about artists or how the music business worked. I had never even turned on the radio, which makes it all the more bizarre that radio became my career! Instead I picked my music by scouring the sale bins for interesting looking CD covers and hoping to find something that spoke to me. That is exactly how I found this album in the first place and I was so pleased to get my CDs signed after the show.

I met some other really cool people while I was there including comedian Janine Gardner who I had the pleasure of sharing a table with during the show. This woman is the real deal and did all the comedy shows back in the day!

And if I really wanted to bring this all back around to laser tag I would have to mention that the videography team included Uri Alaric and former SLC Laser Quester Lindsey aka Tantrum!

It’s amazing how the laser tag community can connect back to almost anything, anywhere!

The place was packed for this show and standing room only by the time the music started and everyone was having a great time!

They performed a few covers as well as plenty of Alta’s originals from her second album. Her brother joined in on a few numbers too.

But for me, one especially memorable moment came as a surprise when mid-cover song Alta started incorporating the lyrics to one of my favorites, bringing me right back to my youth…love it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fljZ8OWof9c

I really don’t have the words to express how happy I am that I was able to attend this incredible performance. It was such a great night! And the show was early enough that afterwards I traveled down to Provo to tag the night away with Brett (aka Snake) and the regulars at the Laser Assault arena. What more could an Armageddon Girl ask for? :)