Lotus are about to break ground in a way that no other rock band has done prior - they are plotting a tour this fall that truly allows their legion of fans to pay-what-they-want for tickets. The Pay-What-You-Want-Tour featuring Lotus is an eight night run of shows in western U.S. states, sponsored by Ticketweb, that lets the fans decide how much their show ticket will cost.

Festival season started early this year.  Well, early for Colorado.  Last Saturday The Disco Biscuits and a cavalcade of friends and like-minded musicians brought the ruckus to Red Rocks Amphitheater for an all-night non-stop mini-festival of epic proportions.  If that sounds like an overstatement, perhaps it is.  Although technically not a festival – the word is honestly a little big for what went down – being outside and seeing no fe

The funky, jammy, L.A. based Underground Orchestra proved to be a good start to the music of the weekend before the chaos started. Anthony Rogers-Wright proved to be an entertaining bassist and just one component of this group. Sam Feldman plays the mandolin, which I love, so this group had an instant in.

This fall, Lotus releases their highly anticipated studio album, Hammerstrike, and steps out on their most ambitious tour yet. The months ahead will wrap up a huge year of growth for Lotus; a year that has positioned this instrumental post-rock outfit for a breakout 2009.

Relentlessly winding upwards along Berthoud Pass, my brain lights up like a pinball machine in action and BAM my thoughts of needing to extol some elder wisdom on my co-hort becomes apparent. The event we are quickly approaching entry into, is unlike most of the "festivals" she has attended in the past.

Due to a scheduling mishap by the Disco Biscuits, they had to play during Day 1, which made the festival's lineup suffer tremendously on Day 2 (pictures here). The festival's organizers compensated by making Day 2 free if one held any ticket stub from either Day 1 or any of the late night shows. That saved Day 2's attendance. We can't blame the festival's organizers for this one.