Sliver Remembers Rocking Against Trump

Chris Mercer: “I don’t like mixing politics with my music, but everything Trump was giving to bigots, Nazis and racists pissed me off enough to where I had to get my band on the show. I brought a Make America Great Again hat to burn, with ‘America’ crossed out and ‘Sliver’ written on it. After our second song, I gave a speech about why we need to resist Trump before throwing the hat into the crowd and watching while they moshed around the burning hat. It was great.

“I jumped into the crowd to mosh and sing with everyone as they lifted me up to crowd-surf. For our last song, I swapped out my guitar, ripped the strings off and started smashing it with the crowd’s help. The crowd lit the guitar on fire, and we all watched it burn. The venue owner pushed the smoldering guitar out of the venue with a shovel, telling me that he really enjoyed our set. That was probably the highlight of any show I had played. Anything that brings awareness to the platform Trump has given to people who are intolerant is a good thing. Smashing guitars is always fun as well.”

Sliver plays Friday, June 22, at Mutiny Information Cafe; Saturday, June 23, at the Hangers in Brighton; and Friday, June 29, at Moe’s BBQ in Englewood.

Editor’s Note: The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. Visit Krumpholz’s website to see more of his work.