It’s summer in Colorado and music fans know exactly what that means: Red Rocks season’s in full swing. Nature’s single rockingest concert venue has already enhanced the likes of Flux Pavilion, Bon Iver, Bassnectar, Michael Franti, Avicii and Wilco in May and June; Foster the People, Film on the Rocks, Global Dance Fest, Florence and the Machine and local up-and-comers The Lumineers (supporting Cake) are on the July horizon. You can’t call yourself a Colorado music fan without making the pilgrimage at least two to three times a year (four or more and you’re hardcore). Aural pleasure doesn’t get any better.
Red Rocks might be our state’s biggest bragging rights card in the acoustics department, but it’s certainly not all we’ve got going on. Psssh–as if. In response to recent wildfire tragedies, this week sees benefits at three different venues: Casselmans on Thursday, Hive (formerly Sutra) on Friday and Cervantes on Saturday. DJs rarely stop dropping the heat around here; Porter Robinson (7/6 @ Boulder Theater), Burnski (7/6 @ Norad), Donald Glaude (7/14 @ Beta), David Starfire (7/14 @ Cervantes), Eliot Lipp (7/26 @ Cervantes) and Beta’s annual in-conjunction-with-Global-Dance surprise guests are all coming. The Boulder Theater hosts a film about allegedly-retired dance rock outfit LCD Soundsystem on July 18. And The Paramount welcomes Fiona Apple, a woman whose between album hiatuses could pass for semi-retirements in many people’s eyes. And that’s just the tip of the pre-Global Warming iceberg.
May your eardrums be stimulated.
George Peele enjoys strapping on height enhancers and aurally ambushing strangers. He is Music Editor for dev-303magazine.pantheonsite.io. Follow Peele on Twitter: @Orangepeelmoses. Avatar image courtesy Jonathan Shoup.