NYS Music 20​16

Tag: Red Rocks Amphitheatre

  • Brewery Ommegang to Host the String Cheese Incident and Twiddle

    Cooperstown, NY, is setting up to be a hot spot this summer for concert-goers as Brewery Ommegang and Dan Smalls Presents will host their short but sweet annual Summer Concert Series.  The concert season kicked off in May with Lake Street Dive and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. The next show coming up on July 8, is Colorado-based folk-jam band the String Cheese Incident and Vermont’s Twiddle.

    string cheese ommegangKnown for their diverse catalog of bluegrass-rock music with energized jams, the String Cheese Incident thrive on live performances and the fans that push them to rock harder every night. Kings of the festival scene, SCI have been touring for more than 20 years with countless studio and live recordings available as well as DVD’s of recent shows courtesy of Tour Gigs. In May 2015, while building their new studio in Colorado, the group chiseled a week out of their schedules to rent a house in Arizona and construct some new material, while bonding like a good band should. Appearing on their website is a free download of a few songs from that recording, titled  SCI Sound Lab Volume 1.

    Twiddle, the four-piece groove machine that many people are warming up to, recently just sold-out the stunning Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY, and are in full work mode with an intriguing list of tour dates this summer, including appearances at North Coast Music Festival, the Peach Fest and Lockn’ Music Festival.

    While on the road at this very moment, you can catch the String Cheese Incident at some of the major festivals and venues across the states which include Red Rocks, The Peach Fest and Big Sky Brewing Company before returning to New York to pump up the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn.

  • Flaming Lips, Colorado Symphony Orchestra Soar at Red Rocks

    It was only a matter of time, but, still, it only happened once. It was after the last of the confetti guns fired their joyous paper rainbows. It was after the last violin string plucked their textured whimsy into our hearts, and flitted away like an invisible butterfly into the crisp Colorado air. It wasn’t until the Flaming Lips had vacated the stage to be whisked away on a tour bus into the night-dark cloud billows. Only then did it happen. I cried.

    To be sure, the pairing of the Flaming Lips with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and their full choir at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre on May 26 soared. The lush orchestra arrangements blended angelically with the Lips performance of their 1999 breakthrough album, The Soft Bulletin. Early in the show, lead singer, Wayne Coyne, donned a metal halo bowl and a robe of reactive rope light that made him appear like an alien Bible prophet with an amazing technicolor dream coat. A vast array of LED lights hung above the stage added the otherworldly glow of the show.

    Flaming Lips Red Rocks

    But what deepened the raw emotion for me was an announcement from my family, prior to the concert, that my father’s brain cancer had entered its final stage. I was rattled, and it was difficult to conceive how I might enjoy the performance, much less be able to write a semi-coherent review of the show afterward. But Coyne’s lyrics have always reached for the transcendent and eternal by reminding us of our mortality. The Lips’ music has always sought to find a sense of wonder by realizing the brevity of human life. Coyne’s primary message to concert audiences has always been, the sooner we accept and embrace our ephemeral nature, the sooner we will accept and embrace life. And love one another. Those simple, soft undercurrents of tenderness have always given the spectacle of the band’s stage show it’s spark and emotion. The orchestra and choir only heightened the emotional textures of the performance.

    Flaming Lips Red Rocks

    Near the evening’s end, the white, hot blade of stage light sliced through the flurry of confetti and split open my fractured thoughts with the fan favorite, “Do You Realize?” With his reedy tenor voice Coyne plaintively asked, “Do you realize/everyone you know someday will die?” The song isn’t intended as a warning, but as an invitation to show an appreciation for loved ones and life. That invitation carried through with a closing cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” that Coyne performed perched near the 25th row inside his trademark hamster ball. “Far above the world/Planet Earth is blue/And there is nothing I can do.”

    I was overcome by the moment. I was finally close enough to read the words on Coyne’s pink T-shirt. “My Heart Is Nuclear!” the shirt proclaimed. It was one of those nights could remind one, that even in the face of profound sorrow, there is reason for gratitude. And it was one of those shows that makes one consider that maybe it is true. Love, perhaps is all we need under a dark night sky swirling with rainbow confetti.

    Setlist: Race for the Prize, A Spoonful Weighs a Ton, The Spark that Bled, The Spiderbite Song, Buggin’, What Is the Light?, The Observer, Waitin’ for a Superman, Suddenly Everything Has Changed, The Gash, Feeling Yourself Disintegrate, Sleeping on the Roof

    Encore: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1, Do You Realize?

    Encore 2: Space Oddity (David Bowie), The W.A.N.D.