While much of the country was figuring out how to dish up Thanksgiving leftover turkey, Leftover Salmon served up two steamy nights of tasty bluegrass licks at the Boulder Theater. The six-man band, celebrating 25 years of music, joined forces with the Jeff Austin Band for a two-night run that allowed Colorado music fans to quickly forget the remaining helpings of turkey sandwiches and soup. Both nights Leftover Salmon jammed two sets of their polytechnic Cajun bluegrass for three hours. The second set of night one included a full helping of their album the Aquatic Hitchhiker followed by energetic covers of Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix.
Jeff Austin’s group of melody makers started each night with lively improvisational sets that turned Black Friday shopping stampedes into golden foot-stomping jamborees. Early in night two, Jeff Austin joined Leftover for a breathless series of tunes rivaling any jams on the live music scene. The weekend celebration was a hootin’, hollerin’, holiday hoedown.
“There are three things to remember about Beats Antique shows,” said a young woman wearing hand drawn cat whiskers and ears to her friend wearing a red raccoon mask as the musicians began their recent Boulder performance.
“What?” the raccoon-masked woman asked breathlessly.
“Wild, Weird, wacky!” she exclaimed. “Oh, and also wonderful!”
“That’s four things!” her friend yelled back.
Four things by which to remember the Bay-area-based band performance indeed. Towards the end of a two-year “Creature Carnival” tour, there was plenty of the aforementioned wild and weird qualities. But before it got weird, Beats Antique got Old World in what would become a two-day vaudeville/carnie/sci-fi/ adventure. David Satori and Capel began leading a musical caravan of live musicians across the wagon-rutted dirt trails of the ancient Silk Road complete with percussive Middle Eastern rhythms, electronic mixes, and a group of belly dancers wearing animal masks.
Main dancer, Zoe Jakes, decked in an embellished belly dancer costume and jeweled head-piece, channeled famed dancer, Badia Masabni, born in Lebanon around 1892, to begin a series of differently-themed routines that included a burlesque number with over-sized green feathers.
Things, as it were, got weird later during a dance number in which several dancers dressed in Tron-like LED costumes with cheerleader pom poms and black kabuki masks. It was as if high cheerleaders had been sent 2,000 years in the future to perform the halftime show of some science fiction tribal fertility rite under the eerie, blue glow of a black-lit, post-apocalyptic universe. Near the shows end both night, members of Beats Antique called an audience member on stage to help battle a towering one-eyed inflatable monster.
Weird? Yes. Wacky? You bet. But all of it was wild and wonderful.
Once a year, tens of thousands of people gather in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to create Burning Man: Black Rock City, a temporary metropolis dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance. In this crucible of creativity, all are welcome. Burning Man isn’t your usual festival. It’s a vibrant participatory metropolis generated by its citizens.
“I’ve never heard so many notes playing at once!” exclaimed a lanky festivarian draped in a tie-dye T-shirt, following the terrific main stage show of Joe Russo’s Almost Dead at the recent Arise Festival in Loveland, Colorado. Certainly, the hippie’s exclamation served as an apt description of the world’s best Dead cover band. However, the statement served as even more appropriate description of the hybrid event set the picturesque mountain setting. Arise is constructed as a “co-creator” event that offers a spicy jumbalaya of multi-cultural live music, electronic performances, art presentations, along with numerous workshops centered around eco-activism, social justice, and spirituality practice.
For those busy facilitating the weekend workshops, the 100 musical acts may have been mere distant echoes, but the results, at times, gave heartrending results. One such workshop led with a descendent of a man who once led a massacre against a Lakota tribe. The harrowing account was immediately followed by another presenter who is a current Lakota tribe member who offered words of healing regarding the violent past, and finished with a blessing of earth healing. That’s powerful stuff to be sharing at a music festival for sure.
As for the music scene, Arise boasts an advantage of what many are calling “next generation” festivals. Unlike similar events like Costa Rica’s Envision festival, the folks of Arise largely rely on the presence of live music acts. Not that Arise didn’t give electronic bassheads enough whomp. The Polish Ambassador headlined the main stage on Friday and a revamped Area 51 stage featured a full schedule of spin meisters through the weekend.
For me, the joy of the music scene was the live music. And there was plenty of joy in the concert bowl. Friday highlights included an emotional set of bluegrass folk from Rising Appalachia and the rousing rockabilly of Sister Sparrow and Dirty Birds. Arleigh Kincheloe, the band’s lead singer belted out tunes with pipes powerful enough to put plumbers out of business. And these acts were just warming up the crowd. Lukas Nelson, who spent the summer touring with Neil Young, shimmied, jumped, and rocked his way in the free world with a series of serrated guitar solos that Young would admire. And even though funk bands seem to grow these days thicker than mountain thistle, Turkuaz finished with a reasonably fresh and energetic take on the newly popular genre. Interspersed between the live sets were a dizzying array of acrobatic and fire performances from the likes of Lunar Fire and Fractal Tribe.
The 90 degree daytime temps didn’t slow down the Saturday line-up either. Western New York’s favorites Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad have become Colorado’s adopted sons for roots reggae, and their upbeat, jaunty rhythms dropped happily between two festival favorites, Ozomatli and the afore-mentioned Joe Russo’s Almost Dead. The crowd danced so hard, even Dirty Santa and sequined red suit was “almost dead” before midnight.
Still, the peak acoustic show the weekend didn’t arrive till Sunday’s offering of Larry Keel’s Bluegrass Tribute to the Grateful Dead. Edward Sharpe of the Magnetic Zeroes, at times, seemed restless and distracted, but the top-notch band behind him remained strong. Rounding out the main stage show, Trevor Hall’s easy going folk sound glided the crowd safely down to the festival weekend landing strip. Like many of the performers featured during the weekend, the Arise festival, only in its third year, is already hitting all the right notes.
Who would’ve thought. It would take the arrival a Brit with a blood sacrifice to dispel a month-long blanket of gunmetal grey skies, daily rainfall, and dispiriting gloom that settled into Colorado’s front range. The thought may seem a bit paradoxical considering England is a country so often associated with bad weather. But he is no ordinary bloke and May 16, 2015, was no ordinary night.
Dave Tipper, the bloke to which I refer, is the pioneer/ wizard of electronic music from London that led the way on for a one night extravaganza at Red Rocks Amphitheatre that included transcendental artists, aerial and fire performers, and a brand new stage sound system.
For the record, the islands that comprise Great Britain only averages 46th in yearly rainfall- well behind the U.S. ranking of 25th in the world. And Tipper reported on Twitter that he felt compelled to leave a drop of his blood on the Red Rocks stage the night before in order “to appease the rain gods.” So, it turns out that the unlikely Englishman and his blood sacrifice was just what was needed to part the roiling cloud billows like actor Charlton Heston parted Red Sea.
From the outset, Tipper determined to make the evening different from other electronic shows. Departing from more typical stage set-ups, Tipper and fellow Brit producer, Ott did not place themselves center stage. He explained before the show that he felt the night’s attention shouldn’t be focused on the DJs or their egos. He felt that crowd’s focus should solely be directed towards the music and the surrealistic map projection art. Both Tipper and Ott placed themselves on the far ends of the stage and remained unlit throughout the night. There were no lasers or visual projections on the crowd or the stone amphitheater.
It set the tone for a “no-frills” approach to the evening, but the performances weren’t short on spectacle. Tipper’s first down tempo set was accompanied by a giant center stage screen of fractal map projections created by Jonathan Singer. Acclaimed artists Alex Grey and his wife Allison painted on stage through the first set. For the first time ever, Tipper employed the use of a massive new face-melting sound system called Funktion One. Following his first set, Quixotic, a music/artist collective that combines aerial performance, fire dancing, and live music chewed up the scenery with jaw-dropping athleticism and ethereal melodies. The sold-out crowd lept to life with a DJ set from Ott and Tipper’s up tempo set. The big screen visuals pulsed with a flurry of morphing images by Colorado artist, Android Jones.
With a single drop of blood, a collection transcendental art, cutting-edge electronic sound and a sold-out show became a beautiful mix of music, motion, and mountains. Some might even say it was magic.
To anyone inside the 53 square mile radius of the Denver International Airport, it was clear that we were going somewhere different. Everyone in an airport are coming and going from any number of locations around the world, but the arched eyebrows, piercing stares and gaping mouths clearly signaled that my finance, Greta, and I, weren’t going to any of the places they all were. I was dressed in a Christmas tree bright full length, red and green, dashiki. The gown was emblazoned on the chest with an elaborate gold flower embroidered pattern. Greta, too, was dressed in a full length purple tie-dyed dashiki. And the stares were correct. We were headed somewhere different, the McDowell Mountain Music Festival. More accurately, the 2-hour plane flight, and following cab ride would drop us off at the hallowed grounds of an abandoned city lot in downtown Phoenix, Arizona that recently had been bulldozed and flattened to accommodate the blinky, LED light-covered, tie-dyed shirt wearing, hula hoop dancing music aficionados camping next to the Margaret T. Hance Park where the festival would be held.
I had a number of reasons to feel Christmas tree bright. For one, I soon would be slipping into my red sequin Santa suit. It would the first time in two years that I would be donning my official work clothes at a music festival. It would be the first time in three years that I was handed a photo assignment to work a music festival. I may have been temporarily trapped in the serpentine purgatory that most people call an airport security line, but adrenaline shot through my limbs with fire hose force.
Still, I wasn’t quite ready for liftoff. My return to the outdoor music scene bore more than a moment’s worth of self-reflection. A week before one my favorite music festivarians active particularly in the Northeast music scene had accidentally died of an overdose. He was still in his 20s. His heart roared with the power of a V-8 engine and his dancing feet could outlast the Energizer Bunny. (He would die the last night of the festival.) So, as we entered the festival gates for the first time, I knew this return to the music festival world would be a wake-up call. Henry David Thoreau put it best, “Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake.” McDowell Mountain Music Fest would become a reminder to hold onto the music, the people, and the places I love.
Many public places, like airport terminals, are difficult to love. In modern times there seems to many spaces where anonymous people are packed together, but no one feels like they are bound together. Music festival grounds are unique, in that, even in a space where few people may know each other by name, they seem to know each other by heart. McDowell Mountain was a quick reminder of this truth. As soon as the green taxi unceremoniously lurched away from Greta, I, and our lone duffel bag in a shadeless dirt lot, baked to 97 degree perfection, we were approached by new neighbors who offered cold beverages, food, air-conditioning, and even more cold beverages. In addition, they all were adorned in Christmas tree bright apparel brighter than ours. We were but two small fish in the middle of a desert swimming pool swirling in crimson, magenta, fuchsia, bronze, and vermillion. Welcome Home didn’t become a festival cliché by mistake.
A key element contributing to the openness of the scene for musicians and fans alike, was that McDowell is a completely non-profit festival. Festival organizers were hoping to raise $100,000 this year for the Arizona Children’s Hospital. Welcome Home, indeed. The steady parade of top-tier acts played with reckless abandon for modest sized crowds. Among the early night headliners Passion Pit and Portugal the Man spent the evening belting out songs that often hit notes on the Mariah Carey-like high register. Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos, in particular delivered wineglass-shattering falsetto notes while zig-zagging in front of his bandmates like a single kernel of popcorn jumping on a hot iron skillet stage.
Saturday’s music proved wildly eclectic, veering from the likes of Trombone Shorty’s testosterone-infused New Orleans funk to Phantogram’s ethereal guitar-driven electronica. Finally, Sunday’s line-up delivered hippie friendly acts like the bluegrass Trampled By Turtles, and jam band favorites Widespread Panic. One Phoenix area reporter overheard a conversation about Panic’s lead guitarist Jimmy Herring that went something like this, “That guitar playing is nastier than the lunch I just threw up.” Even Panic’s lead in, Beats Antique seemed to take a page from the Primus playbook by ending their show with a inflatable cyclops cat that was over 20 feet tall. A threesome from Beats Antique donned animal masks and enacted a ritual battle with the one-eyed cat till it was completely deflated.
The cyclops creature may have been defeated, but the Arizona crowd was elated. And as Widespread Panic closed their set and the last of Jo Jo Hermann tinkling keyboard notes skittered into the night sky like wild mice, a new feeling began tugging at my sleeve. It felt like the bittersweet pang from the farewell of an old friend. I could almost hear the sinewy roar of a V-8 engine rise in my heart as it carried the rusty, dented dreams of my truest self and all my long lost friends into the infinite star-strewn highway over an ancient desert floor.
At one time I had a friend who exclaimed before each concert she attended, that each band she heard must pass what she called “the sweat test.” That is to say, in order for her to feel satisfied with a band’s performance she should walk away with her clothes drenched in enough sweat from dancing that her attire would freeze stiff shortly after exiting a venue. This was during the early 1990s when I lived through a few rough winters in Rochester, NY. I didn’t go to shows at the time because I was attending a local seminary to get a theology degree and become a Baptist preacher.
Still, her standard for live music stuck with me through the ensuing decades as I grew into the live music scene. I was recently reminded of her on a chilly evening in Boulder, CO as the Rochester-native band, Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad headlined with the Colorado-based funk band, Euforquestra. As I watched the venue full of twirling, jumping,wriggling, and flopping enthusiasts it became clear to me that both bands would easily pass the sweat test.
Euforquestra led the way with a scorching blend of brass-infused funk/Afrobeat music. Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad has gained a devoted following to their improvisational roots reggae sound in the Rocky Mountain region, and their lively finishing set was part of a winter tour devoted only to stops in Colorado.
Like the in-lawsâ hungry cat gnawing on the end of an electric cord of the family Christmas tree lights, Jeff Austin ravenously rips into the shiny surfaces of his bluegrass melodies till he and his audience are zapped with a thousand volts of raw music. Nearly one year has passed since Austin parted ways with Yonder Mountain String Band, and when he took the stage at the Fox Theatre in Boulder last week, he seemed anxious to throw some sparks.
Fronting his new band, Austin assembled a small collection of talented, seasoned musicians, including Eric Thorin on the stand-up bass, Ross Martin on guitar, and Danny Barnes on banjo. Barnes traded licks with Austin with the pan-seared sizzle of a fire department fish fry. Lead-in performer, Sarah Siskind opened with a bluesy, easygoing set before the Jeff Austin band joined to close her set.
“Holy Shit! Holy Shit!” That’s what the crowd at Boulder’s sold-out Fox Theater began chanting as the March Fourth Marching Band closed out their foot-stomping set of percussive funk and jazz tunes. Holy Shit, indeed. The Portland, Oregon band could blow the lid off an Iowa grain silo buried in construction-grade concrete if given the chance. So, the roof of the recently renovated Fox proved no match for the raucous members of March Fourth. As one concert-goer exclaimed following the show, “That was a carnival with a concert!” With stilt performers and acrobats tossed in with a dizzying array of horns, snares, and bass drums, the members of March Fourth beat its way into the hearts of enthusiastic crowd long before the band stampeded the floor and railings for their rousing finale.
String Cheese Incident knows how to throw a New Years Eve party. For their third and final show at 1stBank Center in Broomfield, CO, the band delivered above and beyond with each successive set, and a New Years stunt heading into 2015 that sets a high water mark. Watch below and check out incredible photos below from Andrew Wyatt.
Set 1: Black Clouds, Smile, Let’s Go Outside, Sweet Spot, Water, Kinky Reggae, On The Road
Set 2: Can’t Wait Another Day, Miss Brown’s Teahouse, Desert Dawn, I’m Still Here, Way Back Home, Fool in the Rain, Way Back Home, Jellyfish, Desert Dawn
Set 3: Don’t It Make You Wanna Dance, Land’s End, Glory Chords, Celebration, Rosie, Late In The Evening, Rivertrance, This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody), Just One Story
