Live review: Kiss @ Pearl at the Palms Concert Theater in Las Vegas

Blind Pilot’s long, winding road has brought it to the Front Range many times in recent years. Photo by Todd Radunsky.
Blind Pilot has grown considerably since their original, indie-famous “bike tour” in 2006, in size as well as in notoriety. Last Saturday’s show at the Bluebird Theater featured a full sextet, rather than the 2006 tour’s duo, and produced a sound that, while remaining ethereal, pretty and light, boasted a much larger presence.
View a full photo gallery of this concert here.

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“What time warp of music is this?!” Why, it’s a small tide of third-wave ska. Photo by Evan Semón.
If you’re ever at 13th Avenue and Washington Street, head past sentries Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy, plow back through the Pop/Rock A-Z, and, when you hit the wall of the back room, stop. Turn around slowly, look up and fix your gaze on the posters by the entryway of Wax Trax. There’s Wolverine, blades-a-poppin’, telling you to WAKE UP AND SMELL THE ’90S. [...]

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Danny Barnes’ progressive bluegrass shook the Boulder Theater on Friday night — with a little help from his friends. Photo by Joshua Elioseff.
Texas-born guitar and banjo player Danny Barnes brought his band to the Boulder Theater on Friday for a night of hot string-on-string action, including a guest appearance from e-town’s Nick Forester and and opening set from Boulder’s Spring Creek. Reverb contributing photographer Joshua Elioseff stopped by to document the evening.
View Elioseff’s full photo gallery of the concert here.

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Denver’s Jill Sobule played a typically warm, inclusive homecoming show with Erin McKeown at the Walnut Room on Friday.
“We’re writing theme songs for all the cities we’ve played.”
So began the performance of homegrown favorite Jill Sobule with Erin McKeown at the Walnut Room on Friday night. In a Who’s-Who of Denver notables, Sobule and McKeown paid sardonic tribute to everyone from cinema-great Douglas Fairbanks to football legend-come-saint, John Elway. The song was the spark for the evening’s gaffs, goofs, laughs and sniffles.
View a [...]

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Dweezil Zappa paid tribute to his legendary father, musician, composer and all-around wackjob Frank Zappa at the Fox Theatre last week. Photo by Michael McGrath.
Dweezil Zappa and his band do not mess around. Their Zappa Plays Zappa show on Wednesday night at Boulder’s sold-out Fox Theatre was an early Thanksgiving present to lots of happy old guys — and about 10 women. As a guitarist and front man, Dweezil is physically self-contained and technically perfect, but his playing is expansive and soulful. Backed [...]

Aesthetics rule over logic in Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros’ world.
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros — it sounds like a fantastical creation. And it is. The 10-piece, Los Angeles-based psychedelic-pop road orchestra is creating some of the most refreshingly original sounds in modern rock ‘n’ roll. The band brings a free-flowing glee and a free-spirited exuberance to its music, turning the form upside-down and emphasizing aesthetics over logic.
It helps that the band and its crew travel the country in a bus, spreading contagious [...]

My name is Yonnas. Photo by Micaela DeLisa.
I spent most of last week in bed. I was so sick that the doctor’s office told me not to come in. They didn’t want me to infect anyone else. That’s sick. After a phone interrogation from a nurse, they determined that I probably had H1N1 — yes, the dreaded swine flu — and should just take lots of ibuprofen and stay away from other humans.
Being the lover of Denver music that I am, when I got this [...]

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Japandroids — neither robots nor Japanese. Discuss. Photo by Joe McCabe.
From the first time I saw the name of the duo, I envisioned Japandroids as something closer to the hulking, giant mechanoids from late ‘70s Japanimation than a couple of garage-born auteurs from British Columbia. Now that I’ve seen them, I feel the image is accurate, at least in sound and fury, though the actual visage may not be.
View a full photo gallery of this concert here.

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Yes, it was really that foggy in the Larimer Lounge last night. Thank Christ for that indoor smoking ban, eh? Photo by Julio Enriquez.
Recently honored by NME with the Philip Hall Radar award for best new act, hot on the heels of a DJ set at Twist & Shout and equipped with a gigantic tour bus that crowded the first lane of Larimer Street, the Big Pink came to the Larimer Lounge last night with a larger than life, mythic aura. It was [...]