Reviews
With so many bluegrass offshoot outfits actively touring in the States, sometimes it’s hard to decide whose show to go to on a Friday night. Especially in the bluegrass supported state of Colorado, where fans cannot get enough of its dance-ability and energetic tempo, its one of the most popular options for the live concert-going scene. While longer existing outfits have the option at playing large seated venues, most fans seem to come to dance.
I had never seen Elephant Revival before tonight. And sometimes, ignorance is bliss, and the best way to see a live band. Having no expectations or prior convictions of how a show will sound or make you feel is liberating. After all, music is foremost an innate emotional reaction to rhythms, melodies, and lyrics, and when you have no existing mental model, your mind is forced to make one, which, in its synthesis, is one of the best parts of man’s love affair with music.
When Polytoxic and the Denver Horns come together every year to perform the Last Waltz Revisited, they remind us of the difference between going to a show and going to a SHOW. Everything was in place- a food drive to support a local charity, a brilliant parade of local talent, non-stop entertainment, and an energy that danced through the ears of everyone nearby.
It’s hard to exactly pinpoint where the resurgence in popularity of bluegrass music in the last fifteen years has come from. Perhaps it has to do with American’s wanting to reconnect with roots music. It could be that it blends vocal elements of folk music with musical complexity of jazz and classical composition. Perhaps people are just plain sick of what has been coined now as “country”, which appears to have transitioned into electric big-band steel guitar nonsense with even shallower lyrics.
The front room of the Larimer Lounge filled quickly as Guards and Deer Tick finished sound checking on Thursday night. Shoulder to shoulder, audience members got friendly with their neighbors waiting for the doors to the back (stage) room to open. The show was sold out and fans showed up on time to catch an intimate performance and hopefully get an up close vantage point.
There were four standards for the bands on the bill at The Fox Theater in Boulder on Monday night: each band must have at least one member with an afro (or big hair, at least), each band must hail from somewhere on the western seaboard, each band must maintain a packed house and each band must rip shit up during their set.
Cheer Up! Robert Randolph and the Family Band are in town! The established pedal-steel player and his band came through Colorado in October, and made sure to add a tour stop at the beautiful Boulder Theater on October 21, 2011. The band is has built quite the reputation for high-energy, danceable, uplifting concerts during their relatively short career.
Gill Landry performed the opening act at Hi-Dive on South Broadway in Denver, CO on October 17. Despite Landry’s claims to fame, as a former busker from New Orleans, LA and a member of the popular Old Crow Medicine Show, it is likely that you are unfamiliar with this singer-songwriter’s name. For all those who love Americana music and do not yet know his work
The Boulder Theater has been on a roll lately with their combination of a plethora of amazing and diverse shows. They have allowed the fans of Boulder to see so many different types of entertaining shows. This is what makes the venue the best indoor venue in Colorado.
