Weaving through Denver Music, Art, Culture, and Life
did have some idea of what type of music Spot would offer up that night, though, and he did not disappoint. In fact, his skill, jovial charisma and simple, blues-driven, folky punk did everything to completely wipe away any preconceived images I may have had, and replaced them with an almost loving respect for the gentleman musician he really was.
. . . the five-piece showed the surging Denver throng that it has reached a sort of musical plateau, one where it can perform just about any collection of new, old and really old material with aplomb and brilliance. They can whip any crowd into a throbbing fury, and then easily coax it back into placidity.
From the first plea in their opening cover of Waylon Jennings’ “Stop the World and Let Me Off,” you could feel that last Tuesday night’s set from John Doe and the Sadies at
Black Francis — a.k.a. Frank Black, a.k.a. the leader of alt- and indie heroes the Pixies — is a storyteller. His ability to thread a yarn through rambling, surrealist lyrics is only exceeded by his talent in wrangling pure and simple rock that’s a worthy backdrop for them.
The last time I saw Motörhead was with Black Sabbath at the Paramount Theatre, some 10 years ago, and Lemmy looked older then than he did Saturday night at the Fillmore fronting his legendary metal band.
In front of blister-fast rhythms and searing metal riffs, Valient Himself screamed songs into the mosh pit on subjects ranging from how poorly George Bush is handling this country and the Iraq war . . . .
Drew Daniel bounced around his table like an animated mad scientist leaning over his mixing boards, laptops and synths and frantically grabbing, mixing, and manipulating sounds. M.C. Smith sat at his table fingering his synth, and then strumming, scratching and hitting the strings on his guitar. Over their heads played a black and white video of a young blonde Adonis-looking character, masturbating in a hot tub.
Though [Patrick] screamed often in anger about the disgust he holds for the situation we find our society in — centered around the Iraq war, but certainly not limited to it — he could have been reading off of cue cards at times.
