Technical Performance Rider Keyboard Player

Westword Music Showcase – June 18th – Golden Triangle

This past weekend, The Westword threw their annual music festival in the Golden Triangle neighborhood.  With 16 stages and over 150 local and national bands participating the festival boasts that it is Denver’s biggest one-day music festival and quite frankly, it’s almost too much to manage.  With 16 bands playing at the same time, conflicts abound and you are left to select only a few over the course of the day.

Our day started at the mainstage for a set from LA’s Young The Giant .  Their soaring rock-n-roll sounded great at times, but was unfortunately marred by some technical difficulties.  From there we headed over to Stoney’s on Lincoln to catch some of the radio ready rock supplied by Vices I Admire and Young Cities .  Unfortunately the sound in the sprawling bar did reach much beyond the twenty or so feet directly in front of the stage, so our perch at a table by the bar wasn’t in the prime listening window, but on some level that is what the festival is all about.  It’s a chance to wander between bars, catch some music or grab a drink and hang with friends and there were plenty of people doing it all.  I’m pretty sure there were a couple of groups of people who didn’t even know that the festival was going on and they had simply come in to grab a drink on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

As Young Cities wrapped up their set, we headed back to the mainstage to catch the blistering metal of Austin’s The Sword , and boy did they deliver.  The scorching hour long set was heavy on material from the bands recent release Warp Riders and executed with precision.  While some in the crowd complained of the volume, The Sword was pumping out much more than just noise as the notes showered down on us from the stage and baby faced guitarist Kyle Shutt whipped his hair around and made it all look so easy.    Their set included “To Take The Black,” “Tears of Fire,” and an appropriate and ripping cover of ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses.”