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