Concerts

Rodrigo y Gabriela will headline Red Rocks on Sunday, but it’s the undercard we’re most excited for: Namely, Nathaniel Rateliff, who hasn’t played his own stuff around here in a while. We’d also like to make sure you’re aware of Vail Rocks, which supports the exceedingly worthy Love Hope Strength…

Ed. Open Music Sessions is an ongoing collaboration between Open Media Foundation, Greater Than Collective and Westword to create videos based on regular live tapings of exceptional bands from Colorado and beyond. In our debut Open Music Session, blues-rock band Dragondeer played a sinewy set in the Denver Open Media…

Baseball fans will wear their favorite player’s name across their back, as adults, before and after Halloween. They will fill their bookshelves with histories and biographies and fantasy guides the size of the yellow pages, and they will keep them long after the actual yellow pages have been recycled or…

All told, the entire incident was more embarrassing than scary. In 2006, Rick Roberts, songwriter and singer of the country-rock-blues sensation Firefall and the Flying Burrito Brothers, stumbled on a rug in his home, sending him head-first into a kitchen island…

Chive Fest will bring two stages and eight bands to City Park this weekend. It’s one of the first conventional music festivals to use the space, although other concert promoters have tried and failed in the past. In this week’s music feature, now posted on the Backbeat blog, Gina Tron…

Summers are made for big name band package tours, bills sold to audiences as pairings meant to fill outdoor venues by combining fan base forces. These tours are also usually made up of bands consisting of old rock dudes. (For examples, see the 2014 summer tour package circuit: Rod Stewart/Santana,…

It’s a well-known fact that in order to be a true Coloradan, a yearly prescription of outdoor adventure must be filled. This weekend, I went to Buena Vista to do just that: kayaking, rafting, rock climbing, mountain biking, etc. But when I loaded the car and set off on the…

The largest and brightest moon of the year shone down on Earth this weekend. The phenomenon, called the Super Moon, occurs when the moon is full on the same day as its perigee — the point when its orbit is the closest to the our planet, resulting in a moon…

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…