Concerts

This week brings the surprising and powerful pop-punk revival to Englewood with a double-bill featuring Fall Out Boy and Paramore (whose leader recently skipped two dates on doctor’s orders). Elsewhere, guitar hero Eric Johnson stops through, Sheryl Crow finishes off the Chatfield portion of the Botanic Gardens concert series and…

Although Derek Vincent Smith, also known as Pretty Lights has played Red Rocks five times before, this weekend’s show was different. The unique set up, featuring not only live band but also thirteen members of the Colorado Symphony, was the first time Smith has included a full string section in…

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I’d bet money that Ryan Adams was on Ritalin as a kid. And I say this not only because he has that kind of manic genius about him that so many hyper kids have, but because for the entirety of last night’s show, he was grabbing spare attention any way…

This weekend’s best shows include rapper Redman releasing a new album poolside in RiNo, Xiu Xiu bringing its newest noise to Larimer Lounge and “Jessie’s Girl” to Fiddler’s Green. There are plenty of other good ones in the next couple days — the rest of our picks for the weekend…

When a music-geek favorite such as Jolie Holland comes to town, the Larimer Lounge on a summer Thursday is pure Denver: tattooed, homegrown punks hanging at the bar and (mostly) transplants — hippies, middle-aged alcoholics, young white-collar music lovers and everything in between — milling around on the back porch…

The Gaslamp Killer stands out, even when he’s part of a long night of wide-ranging modern electronic music. His DJ set spanned decades seamlessly and he has a constant, even hyperkinetic movement — an effort that makes many musicians not from Denver reel from the exhaustion. In fact, he scoffed…

If there is one thing Lady Gaga fans love to do, it’s throw shit at her. Last night at the Pepsi Center, I watched as jackets, vests, bras, bouquets of flowers, unicorn heads and letters of adoration littered the stage over the course of less than two hours. But here’s…

Former Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore has spent the past four summers teaching a course on William Burroughs at Naropa University in Boulder. In this week’s music feature, now posted on the Backbeat blog, Tom Murphy talks to the rock legend about how he got the job and how Patti…

Chromeo and Cut Copy headlined Red Rocks last night in what was among the best shows of the Red Rock’s season. So many aspects of it are worth praise that instead of boring you with a think piece about Dave-1’s tight tight pants or Flume’s entrancing visuals, we decided to…

Goldrush Music Festival returns for its fourth installment on September 13 and 14 at the Larimer Lounge and Meadowlark. As we told you last week, the initial lineup announcement was greeted with the largest response in the ambitious young festival’s history. It’s a safe bet that trajectory will continue with…

1. The first time she heard Sara Bareilles’s breakout hit “Love Song,” a young swimmer named Hannah Bradford immediately won her race, setting a personal record in the process. That was in 2007, when the song was ubiquitous, particularly among suburban families driving to swim meets. So the girl who…

Shatterproof’s Up In Smoke tour could be a sequel to National Lampoon’s Vacation. The rock band, based out of Fort Collins, started planning its first tour in March. By mid-July, Shatterproof was ready. Its bus, named “ShatterBus,” was not…

Denver Black Sky II brought a true believer’s lineup of hardcore and metal to the Gothic Theater over the weekend. The crowd found the proceedings deeply satisfying — on Saturday night, Englewood was home to more broadly grinning people in pointy-font t-shirts than anywhere else on the planet. Photographer Aaron…

Red Rocks plays the classics this week, with performances by Chicago (with REO Speedwagon) and Boston. It’ll also host a damn good time of a double-bill in Chromeo and Cut Copy. The rest of our picks follow. See also: Cut Copy on Interactive Billboards, Unusual Guitars and the Summer of…

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HARD is an organization that brings skyrocketing DJs in sunglasses and aggressively patterned shirts to venues and boats around the country. Last night, the Red Rocks installment (HARD: Red Rocks, duh) brought headliners Nero and Dillion Francis along with a few more artists and several thousand people who are, in…

Big weekend for big shows here in Colorado. A few festivals, including Telluride Jazz, bring deep lineups to the mountains. And the alleged last ride of hair metal legend Motley Crue comes to Denver tomorrow. We have plenty more — see the full list of our picks below…

When Joan Baez played at the Botanic Gardens a few weeks ago, she kicked off her shoes and danced around the stage, pulling her keyboard player away from his instrument to join her. As she did, people in the audience got up from their blankets and danced too, because how…

There was no gobbing, no fighting, no obvious fascist skinheads ruining last night’s Black Flag show for other people. There were also no members of the classic line-up beyond the band’s founder, Greg Ginn. But twenty-eight years after Black Flag last did a national tour, that was to be expected…

Tomorrow, Westword, Open Media Foundation and Greater Than Collective will co-hosting a live performance by Denver’s Kitty Crimes at the Denver Open Media studios at 7th and Kalamath. It’s a continuation of our Open Music Sessions, where we will create several videos based on regular live tapings of exceptional bands…