Concerts

STING at WELLS FARGO THEATRE | 11/20/11Sting’s list of endearing anecdotes is almost as long as his lineup of inexplicably bizarre ones — which, in turn, is almost as big as his ego. The former Police frontman and pouty-lipped crooner remains fearless in the face of a staid solo career…

COREY TAYLOR at the GOTHIC THEATRE | 11/19/11This past Saturday at the Gothic, fans were treated to a softer side of Corey Taylor, the charismatic frontman of Slipknot and Stone Sour. On tour in support of his Seven Deadly Sins book, Taylor returned to Denver, which he considers a second…

TINY TITWRENCH DANCE PARTY at HI-DIVE | 11/19/11On Saturday night, the fine folks at Titwrench threw their Tiny Titwrench Dance Party at the hi-dive. Piper Rose hosted the party which featured Wheelchair Sports Camp, Biggawatt, the Haircut, DJ Pam, DJ Pyramid and DJ Time Lord. Josiah Hesse was on hand…

PLAID at the BLUEBIRD | 11/19/11 One of the most vividly enduring memories of last night’s Plaid show at the Bluebird Theater came at the end of the show, when the band performed “At Last.” The video projected on the screen and the group itself made it seem like we…

DJ PREMIER at CITY HALL | 11/19/2011The masses came together last night to pay respect to one of hip-hop’s living legends, DJ Premier at City Hall. Making his way cooly onto the stage to screams of “Preemo,” DJ Premier got right to work with “Nas is Like.” Half-man, half amazing,…

PANTyRAiD at the Fillmore | 11/20/11Well, it’s safe to say that Marty Folb and Josh Mayer successfully raided the Fillmore’s panties last night. Debuting their new stage set-up, created by a Denver based design group, the mysterious duo brought their heavy, glitched-out hip hop and bass music to Denver, showing…

ZEDS DEAD at the OGDEN | 11/18/11For the first of two nights, Zeds Dead sold out the Ogden Theatre, and introduced Denver to its new staging, which included a strobe so powerful that it wouldn’t be at all surprising to hear that everyone has “ZD” seared into their consciousness today…

Paging Alexandra Patsavas: Have you met Shel (due at the Bluebird tonight with Elephant Revival) yet? If not, you should definitely make their acquaintance. The music these lovely ladies make genuinely sounds like it was painstakingly crafted in a lab specifically to be played in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy…

For years, Barry Fey says, music fans have been needling him to write a book. “You know, people have been saying ‘When’s the book? When’s the book?’ for fifteen years,” Fey notes. “It was daily, wherever I would go out… ‘When’s the book? Come on, you’ve got to write a…

Andy Turner and Ed Handley of Plaid (due Saturday, November 19, at the Bluebird) were part of the groundbreaking electronic music project The Black Dog in the late ’80s through the earliest part of the ’90s with Ken Downie. Mixing ambient soundscaping with textured, syncopated rhythms, The Black Dog became…

Helluva weekend on deck for you before we coast into turkey day festivities next week: There’s a dual CD release party tonight at Herman’s featuring Omniism and Something Underground, Royal Bangs are at the hi-dive, Tedeschi Trucks Band is at the Fillmore, Elephant Revival’s at the Bluebird. Tomorrow night, PANTyRAiD’s…

Feel like cutting a rug this weekend? Good because there’s plenty on this weekend’s Dance Card: There’s a label launch tonight at minibar for 5 and Dime, a brand-new deep/tech house label; the launch will have music from Bones, ben A, Louis Marr, Joseph Newman and Quinn. There will be…

Bop Skizzum has finally named its new lead singer, and she’s making her live debut tonight at Cervantes’, when the band shares a bill with the legends of Fishbone. Last month we confirmed that the group had indeed found a replacement for the then-departing Erin Jo Harris, but they were…

Ian Cooke’s gotta be breathing a sight of relief today. Yesterday morning, the lauded local songwriter, who was driving by himself, was involved in an accident in which his van flipped. Somehow he escaped injury. According to Ian O’Dougherty, his longtime friend and manager, Cooke hit some black ice, which…

GWAR at SUMMIT MUSIC HALL | 11/16/11There’s not a lot left to say about Gwar that hasn’t already been mythologized. Instead, I’ll defer to tradition: About twenty minutes before one of the band’s shows, you hear the collective sound of zippers. Attached to ponchos and raincoats and the occasional sweatshirt,…

Here are the winners of the 2011 Denver #WebAwards in the category we’re loosely dubbing “music,” which means Backbeat scribes report on the happenings in these areas, right here on Backbeat. These are the winners only; for a complete list of finalists go here: “Here are your 2011 Denver #WebAwards…

Brennan Bryarly, a resident DJ at Lipgloss under the name option4, got to see world-renowned turntablist A-Trak in a room of about forty people at South by Southwest a few years ago, and catching that act in such an intimate venue blew his mind. “Then I started thinking about it,”…

Update 11/22/11: The suspense has ended: Five Iron Frenzy reunites, posts new song, announces plans for new album due in 2013! Oh those crazy Five Iron Frenzy kids. What will they do next? They have something planned. Something big, evidently. And whatever it is, it’s happening tomorrow (uh, make that…