The Bear Creek music festival at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park was a fun filled sensual delight from the tingling chill of a Friday night freeze, the warmth of the campfire, fuzzy bear costumes all around, campfire smoke whimsically dancing through the air, laser light spectacles such as green naked lady outlines surfing through the trees, and did I mention the music? Destination Funkytown. Houston, we have landed. Bear Creek kept us movn and  groonvn all night long.

Nobody needs to remind any live music goer how active of a place Colorado and its Front Range are for seeing concerts. Intimate or gigantic, we have as much of a draw for jazz, rock, hip-hop, bluegrass, blues, indie, classical or pretty much anything else you could think of. People come in hordes from all around the country to see their favorite acts at our one-of-a-kind venue scene. Something about the Colorado attitude meshes well with hassle-free lot scenes, and of course the most important part, the concert.

With so many bluegrass offshoot outfits actively touring in the States, sometimes it’s hard to decide whose show to go to on a Friday night. Especially in the bluegrass supported state of Colorado, where fans cannot get enough of its dance-ability and energetic tempo, its one of the most popular options for the live concert-going scene. While longer existing outfits have the option at playing large seated venues, most fans seem to come to dance.

I had never seen Elephant Revival before tonight. And sometimes, ignorance is bliss, and the best way to see a live band. Having no expectations or prior convictions of how a show will sound or make you feel is liberating.  After all, music is foremost an innate emotional reaction to rhythms, melodies, and lyrics, and when you have no existing mental model, your mind is forced to make one, which, in its synthesis, is one of the best parts of man’s love affair with music.

When Polytoxic and the Denver Horns come together every year to perform the Last Waltz Revisited, they remind us of the difference between going to a show and going to a SHOW.  Everything was in place- a food drive to support a local charity, a brilliant parade of local talent, non-stop entertainment, and an energy that danced through the ears of everyone nearby.

It’s hard to exactly pinpoint where the resurgence in popularity of bluegrass music in the last fifteen years has come from. Perhaps it has to do with American’s wanting to reconnect with roots music. It could be that it blends vocal elements of folk music with musical complexity of jazz and classical composition. Perhaps people are just plain sick of what has been coined now as “country”, which appears to have transitioned into electric big-band steel guitar nonsense with even shallower lyrics.

On December 13, 2011, Keller Williams delivers Bass, his 17th album.

97.3 KBCO & Z2 Entertainment are proud to present Jackie Greene at the Fox Theatre on Saturday, January 14th.  Tickets go on sale Friday, November 18th for $15.00 general admission.

The Mimi Fishman Foundation has launched a new charity auction that features many items including tickets to the end of year Phish sold-out Madison Square Garden shows. In addition many of the Summer Tour 2011 posters are available with all poster signed by the members of Phish. A very special and unique

There were four standards for the bands on the bill at The Fox Theater in Boulder on Monday night: each band must have at least one member with an afro (or big hair, at least), each band must hail from somewhere on the western seaboard, each band must maintain a packed house and each band must rip shit up during their set.