At age 48, k.d. lang is at the top of her game — an obvious fact from her show at the Buell Theatre on Saturday night.
Good singers just get better and better, until they don’t. But that leaves a moment in time when they have all the benefit of experience and the finest ability to make use of it. It’s the period when they are at their absolute best.
At 48, it’s fair to assume that k.d. lang may be singing through the most interesting decade [...]

Does Stephen Malkmus (right) know something Joanna Bolme doesn’t? Photos by Julio Enriquez.
I hope none of capacity Gothic Theatre crowd attending Thursday night’s Jicks show expected to get treated to a helping of Pavement. If so they were no doubt delightfully disappointed. As strongly as the considerable influence of Pavement’s indie sound has reverberated through many of today’s more successful alternative bands like Modest Mouse, Calexico and others, Stephen Malkmus remains prescient enough to guide his Jicks beyond all that. And if his latest efforts [...]

Metallica singer James Hetfield tunes his rhythm guitar with his mind at Pepsi Center on Tuesday. Photos by Candace Horgan.
The surreal nature of watching Metallica play the Pepsi Center on election night could only have been more pronounced if the band congratulated the winner of the presidential contest from the stage, dressed in American flag leotards or showered the crowd with red, white and blue plastic skulls.
Of course, the world’s biggest metal band did none of these things. They were there to rock.
But if was [...]

Denver’s Everything Absent or Distorted rocked the Oriental Theater on Friday night. Photos by Brian Carney.
Halloween night brought out Denver music lovers as much as it did trick or treaters and partiers, including a healthy crowd at the Oriental Theater for sets from Pink Hocks, Kelli Rudick and Everything Absent or Distorted.
Rudick, in particular, impressed the eight-piece indie rock headliners (they joked during sound check that she was too good to be opening for them), her presence at the venue a popular holdover from a [...]

His secret is really, really expensive shampoo. No kidding. Photos by Julio Enriquez.
Since my job requires that I attend at least twice the amount of shows I used to as a civilian, it’s really helpful when I see an act that puts the lifeblood back in me. The formula is somewhat simple, but, as I’ve learned from experience, awfully hard to attain. It goes a little something like this: wild, wooly, and loud.
A great show, in retrospect, is often reduced to this holy trinity, illustrated [...]

Tenacious D’s Jack Black signals the combined IQ of his last few movie roles at the Fillmore on Monday. Photos by Evan Semon.
A quarter century ago they urged teens to fight for their right to party.
Now well into their 40s, the Beastie Boys are all grown up and fighting for your right to vote for their party. Billed as a get-out-the-vote party, it was really a Barack-the-vote show at the sold-out Fillmore Auditorium Monday night, the final night of the Beasties’ seven-city swing through states [...]

When does a normal-length set feel too short? When it’s TV on the Radio, of course. Photos by Lucia De Giovanni.
It’s a good thing to be a little shocked and disappointed to see a band lay down its instruments and walk off stage, right? It’s a sign that you were wrapped up in the show, isn’t it?
TV on the Radio’s Sunday night set at the Ogden came to a close all too quickly, and not because the band cut corners and delivered a measly little [...]

Hayley Helmericks (left) and Doug Spencer of Monofog get into the Halloween spirit at the Hi-Dive on Friday. Photo by Lisa Gedgaudas.
It was a foggy night of yowls, wails and moans on Halloween at the Hi-Dive with local bands the Natural Selection, Hearts of Palm, Bad Luck City and Monofog. The seemingly ever-lasting show exhibited the darker side of our indie music scene while perfectly enhancing the surrounding costumes as they weaved through the crowd.
The Natural Selection and Hearts of Palm started the night with [...]

Mexican flags and socially conscious chants adorned Jaguares’ set at the Ogden Theatre on Thursday. Text and photos by Julio Enriquez.
“It’s your ritual tonight.”
That’s how Saúl Hernández communicated to his faithful fans, donning Mexican flags to enjoy the Jaguares experience on Thursday at the Ogden Theatre. In response, the seemingly 98 percent Mexican crowd chanted “México! México! México!” between songs, giving the concert a World Cup feel.
On a night where most of the show had the possessed Saúl in a trance while singing the hits, [...]

From darkness he was borne unto our mortal realm to conquer souls of all unsavory manner. And sell T-shirts. Photo from MyGothicDarkSpace.
Woe to you, sad reader, for this is the eerie tale of the Blackest of the Black and the diminutive demon Danzig who did call together an unholy alliance to travel across the land. Know you that this gathering of the damned has only one goal: to spread the wailing sounds of the Wicked One, gathering more followers and thusly more purchasers of his [...]