Spoon, The Revivalists played Red Rocks – 8/15
Austin indie vets Spoon and NOLA rockers The Revivalists teamed up for the second of two nights at Colorado’s iconic Red Rocks.
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For the final stop of Noise Floor’s summer abroad (abroad counts as anything beyond New England for this blog), I caught up with a longtime favorite band in a particularly splendid setting. Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater is one of the more venerated live music venues in the U.S., and with good reason. Essentially a naturally-occurring geological stage, the performance area is flanked by enormous rock formations, and the tiered bench seating overlooks the city of Denver in the distance. I’d truly never been anywhere like it for a show, and an appearance by the always-impeccable Spoon was a perfect opportunity to make it happen (as part of a much longer Vegas -> Arizona -> Denver road trip).
Following a short hike from the parking lots to the venue itself (just as a reminder that you are in the mountains out here), Chicago band Whitney’s sunny indie pop was an agreeable way to get the evening started (and for me to get acclimated to shooting one of the lowest stages I’ve ever seen at the venue this size – another unique signifier Red Rocks has going for it).
Spoon were up next for the golden-hour show, and served up an airtight 15-song set of crowdpleasers. One of indie rock’s true constants across their 30-year career, I’d argue Spoon are among the most consummate rock bands on the planet today, period. Such a set, leaping from the infectious groove of “Don’t You Evah” to the wistful bliss of “Do You” to a slashing “Hardest Cut” in effortlessly quick succession, offered ample affirmations to that sentiment. No longer directly supporting their most recent full-length, 2022’s Lucifer on the Sofa, singer/guitarist Britt Daniel and the band were free to range, touching on six records as far distant as 2002’s Kill the Moonlight. Personally I might’ve preferred the previous night’s delving into a few deeper cuts (all the way back to 1993’s Telephono), but another remarkable thing about a Spoon show is that a disappointing setlist is more or less impossible– they have nothing but great songs.
New Orleans’ rootsy pop-rockers The Revivalists headlined the night, and while they’re less my thing, they’ve undeniably got a great frontman in crowd-working singer David Shaw. The rest of the band holds it down too, and they put on a fun show.
Scroll below for a gallery from the night, wherein I tried to capture as much of the Red Rocks of it all as I could with a 28mm (this place really calls for the ultrawide I didn’t want to haul across the country).
