Best Concert of the Year 2016 | D'Angelo and the Vanguard | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
Navigation
Support Us
Search

Best Concert of the Year

D'Angelo and the Vanguard

D'Angelo held his universally acclaimed Black Messiah hostage for some eleven years, crippled by his own perfectionism. Ultimately, the urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement convinced him to submit his revolutionary R&B for the record. He and his band (the Vanguard) took their show on the road, and for the first time in forever, the world's greatest purveyor of auditory foreplay came to Denver. He and the Vanguard put on a capital-S Show, with every note in its place and every song played like it was the first time. D'Angelo served as conductor, guiding band and crowd alike through peaks, valleys and hairpin turns. Let's hope the wait for his next visit won't be measured in decades.

Readers' choice: Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats

Best Musician to Leave Denver

Marshall Gallagher

While Denver continues to solidify itself as a music hub, it still lacks the infrastructure and opportunities of larger cities like New York and Los Angeles. Because of this, we sometimes lose talented and serious musicians who hope to take their careers to the next level. Marshall Gallagher honed his style in the Denver scene for many years, playing in underground acts like Solar Bear and establishing himself as one of the best guitarists around. Recently, Gallagher made the move to Los Angeles and continues to flourish as a guitarist, songwriter, performer and vocalist there. Fronting the incredible bands Swing Hero and Teenage Wrist, he also tours regularly with 3OH!3 and has recently started penning songs for other artists, including Sophia Scott. Gallagher's progression after leaving the Mile High City is proof that sometimes, taking the boy out of Denver might be the best thing after all.

Best Resurrection of a Venue

Globe Hall

Denver lost the Sidewinder Tavern, but it got quite a consolation prize with Globe Hall, a barbecue joint/live-music venue that Jeff Cornelius opened last fall in the circa 1903 lodge and union hall in the heart of Globeville. While the barbecue smokes out back, the casual, 200-seat venue smokes with musical acts designed to make the Globe "a little bit of a hybrid," Cornelius says, with "really accessible, fun, danceable music."

Best Venue to Leave Denver — Permanently

Casselman's

When Casselman's opened in RiNo in 2009 in the 9,000-square-foot building that had been Shakespeare's pool hall (and a distribution warehouse for the May Company in the '40s and '50s), it took a little while for the 1,200-person venue to get its sound and lighting system fully dialed in. But over the next six years, Casselman's morphed into a full-fledged music room. And while it brought in a number of national acts during that time, including Warrant, Skid Row, Anvil, Lynch Mob, Too $hort and Raekwon, Casselman's also hosted an assortment of local bands and nonprofit and corporate functions.

Best Of Denver®

Best Of

Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our terms of use, our cookies policy, and our privacy policy Westword may earn a portion of sales from products & services purchased through links on our site from our affiliate partners. ©2024 Denver Westword, LLC. All rights reserved.
Do Not Sell or Share My Information
Powered By Foundation