WordPlay

Perennial concert companion, Goggins suggested this show upon his return from his sojourn in South America.  He had checked out the bands on their various MySpace pages and decided they were worth the $10 to check out.  Of course plans for the show invariably wavered a bit as the date came closer eventually culminating with the realization that neither of us had really listened to the bands.  The day before the show we actually took a good listen and realized this might not be our cup of tea.  Still, we are adventurous lads and decided to go anyways.

Of course the start of the night required something which couldn’t possibly be bad.  We checked out a cupcake bar which opened a couple of blocks from the Bluebird Theatre. 

The Shoppe is an interesting slice of Colfax shop.  It’s a place which serves cereal and cupcakes while offering various trinkets and even a place to sit and play from a library of board games.  Dry erase boards even cover the walls of the bathroom, encouraging patrons to draw or leave notes.  The cupcakes offered on this particular night ranged from a mocha chocolate to carrot cake.  It appeared the selection changes pretty often but to be honest there’s so many delicious looking cupcakes I’m pretty sure you can’t go wrong with any of them.  They even have special orders for quite possibly the largest cupcakes most people will ever see in their life. 

Goggins and I settled in and enjoyed some tasty cupcakes and played a number of intense rounds of CandyLand despite a valiant effort I was bested 3 games to 1.  Anyhow, we packed it up and headed for the Larimer Lounge to catch the show.

We arrived late for the start of The Widowers set.  Surprisingly, the first song we heard turned out to be an interesting song.  It had a pretty nice melody to it and seemed to have a fuller sound than the sample songs we heard on MySpace.  Unfortunately, the rest of the set seemed to be reduced down to fairly typical indie rock/alt-rock flair.  It wasn’t necessarily bad, it just wasn’t as engaging and full of promise as the first song I heard them play.

The Spinto Band impressed me upon listening to them on their MySpace page.  Their set lived up to the promise of their music and offered an interesting diversity to their sound.  It’s a heavily processed sound but it’s pleasing.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the show itself proved to be entertaining.  The band plays well enought but they seemed more interested in clearing the stage.  They didn’t seem to want to give the rather large crowd the time of day, much less hold their attention for the 40 minute set.   I don’t feel as if you should go out of your way to see The Spinto Band but it might be worth your while to check them out.  There’s a lot of potential with the band and it’ll be interesting to see where they take it.

After getting shuffled and tossed around to the side of the stage, The Whigs came on stage.  The Whigs have a straight forward alt-rock sound but they come with a good deal of hype preceding them from the likes of Rolling Stone and Spin.  The three piece group performed a set in support of their new album Mission Control but they also performed songs from 2005’s Give ‘Em All a Big Fat Lip.  The acoustics weren’t quite up to par with the quality of the music and it caused much of the songs to be muddled.  Throw in the addition of a professional photographer throwing his flash all around the venue.  Still, the band’s more solid than their music makes them appear.  I definitely see the potential and the hype preceding these guys.  I doubt this show will end up being the most memorable one I see all year.  The Whigs provided a solid set and for ten bucks that’s all they needed to do.  The set hit the right notes in showing a talented band about to hit the larger venues and wider media scrutiny.  The sound still needs to be fine tuned but I’m eager to see where they take their music in the next couple of years.