Jacqueline Collins
Audio By Carbonatix
BoomBox is ready to rock your socks off at the Ogden Theatre on December 31, while The String Cheese Incident will send its whole kit and caboodle into your noodle at Mission Ballroom.
Find the complete list of New Year’s Eve shows here, and keep reading for some of the best musical celebrations in Denver:
Colfax Speed Queen
Lost Lake Lounge, 3602 East Colfax Avenue
9 p.m. $25
Denver rock-and-rollers Colfax Speed Queen have been rattling walls and melting faces for over twelve years, and like a fine wine, the musicians have gotten much better with age. Get ready to dodge messy mosh-pitters and chase your champagne toast with shots of cheap whiskey. Fellow Denver acts Church Fire and Nativity in Black will also be present to challenge your notion of what New Year’s Eve should look like.
DeVotchKa
Bluebird Theater, 3317 East Colfax Avenue
8 p.m.
$29.50
Over the past 25 years, these Denver natives have crooned and swooned us with gothic folk sounds that evoke a feeling of riding in a gypsy caravan populated by punk-rock expats. Multifaceted Denver talent Julian Navarro helps open the night.
Illuminated Souls NYE
Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery, 800 East 73rd Avenue
8 p.m.
$30
Looking for a sober experience this New Year’s Eve that will not only keep your liver happy and healthy, but also rejuvenate your mind and spirit? Lumonics Gallery is a life-changing place that deserves to be experienced. Healing trance musicians Meta Myth and NÄga will provide the sounds while the Lumonics crew curates the sights, with further enhancement from the Darshan Dance Company.
BoomBox
Ogden Theatre, 935 East Colfax Avenue
8:30 p.m.
$35.95
BoomBox knows how to throw a party, even hosting its own three-day BoomTown festival for a handful of years at Colorado’s Rancho del Rio. Psychedelic funk meets blues electronica when this dance-y duo takes the stage. BackBeat Brass adds a horn section to the group, while Denver-based electro-soul act Lucid Vision and chilltronica support artist Edamame open the night.
Jimi’s Dead: A Mashup of Hendrix and the Grateful Dead
Knew Conscious, 2350 Lawrence Street
11 p.m.
$12-$120
Eric Krasno from jazz-funk act Soulive has teamed up with Ross James and Alex Koford of the Terrapin Family Band to perform the music of Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead. This brand-new project will debut at the membership-only club Knew Conscious for a New Year’s Eve experience that’s sure to be a trip to remember.
Kiltro
Skylark Lounge, 140 South Broadway
9 p.m.
$25
Denver breakout band Kiltro skillfully blends Chilean folk music with modern prog rock to create a sound that will keep you dancing for days and humming the harmonies that have quickly propelled this group to great heights. Denver synthtronica duo Travel Kit opens the show.
Festo Festo
Mercury Cafe, 2199 California Street
9:30 p.m.
$30-$35
Klezmer music remains a mainstay at the Merc, and this New Year’s Eve show will celebrate the traditional Jewish folk-music style with members of Denver’s Hadgaba, Santa Fe-based Los Klezmerados and the high-energy stylings of local group Gora Gora Orkestar.
The String Cheese Incident
Mission Ballroom, 4242 Wynkoop Street
7:30 p.m.
$50-$129
Having formed twenty years ago in Crested Butte, the String Cheese Incident is no stranger to Rocky Mountain high vibes; the band continues to radiate that strange mountain-town weirdness with its widely popular jamgrass grooves.
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club
hi-dive, 7 South Broadway
9 p.m.
$25-$40
Denver legend SCAC is back with another New Year’s Eve run, bringing together haunting melodies and folk-grass instrumentation to create a sound that has been called “gothabilly.” Head on over to the hi-dive if you’re hoping for a boot-stomping spooky party. Heaven metal act Midwife opens the show along with sludge-metal heads In the Company of Serpents and the heavy Western act known as Snakes!, which is fronted by Slim Cessna’s son George Cessna.
STS9 Presents: The Human Dream
Fillmore Auditorium, 1510 Clarkson Street
8 p.m.
$39.50-$69.50
Sound Tribe Sector Nine is bringing its “dream of human life” concept to Denver for three nights, culminating on New Year’s Eve. This jamtronica group is well known for its high-energy shows that fuse funk, drum and bass, jazz and psychedelia into a kaledioscopic experience that will lift your head into the clouds and keep you feeling starry-eyed for days.
Kevin Knapp
Aztlan Theatre, 970 Santa Fe Drive
10 p.m.
$40
This house music DJ party will last all night long, with the event promising to go until 5 a.m. DJ Kevin Knapp, who specializes in spinning Chicago house, bass house and tech house, will be supported by local DJs DEMZ, Ellechemist, Moody the DJ, Jerry Sinewave and Muff Jefferson.
Know of shows you’d like to see on this list? Send the details to musiccalendar@westword.com. Looking for more to do? Visit the Westword calendar.
