March 3, 2011

Trey Anastasio @ Ogden Theater, March 1

It’s no secret that Colorado fans felt a little left out when Phish’s East Coast tour dates were released. The Mountain State, though saturated with diehards, was too geographically removed to make extending the tour this way financially – or physically – feasible. So, when Trey Anastasio or any of the boys come to town, we scramble for tickets.

[All photos by Matthew Speck]

This tour, Trey Anastasio and Classic TAB’s Denver shows were no different. Many fans unfortunately found that neither Craigslist nor holding a finger in the air would get them into the show, and the already intimate Ogden Theater brought fans closer together than ever before as we packed in to every corner, vying for a little room to let our arms swing. But when Trey made his way on stage and picked up his acoustic guitar, space was no longer an issue.

To begin, it didn’t seem like the solo acoustic set would bring more than expected – some crowd favorites, some sing-alongs and some sweet ballads. The opening lyrics of Farmhouse welcomed us to the room before the funk of Wolfman’s Brother helped us settle in, and When the Circus Comes captured some added attention. It was beautiful and fun, though not surprisingly fantastic. But then Big Red started taking requests. On Timber, the crowd harmonized the call-and-response chorus. Theme from the Bottom was played in a higher key than normal, with a capo on the third fret, which added some interesting changes to the melody. The closing lyrics of “from the bottom, from the top” were again helped along by crowd harmonies.

READ ON for more on TAB’s return to Denver…

Words: Timothy Dwenger

In November of 2006, The String Cheese Incident announced they “had no plans beyond the summer of 2007,” and this left many fans searching for answers because it left things a bit up in the air. Just before the “final” incidents at Red Rocks in August of 2007, Kyle Hollingsworth told the Westword in Denver “what’s frustrating for me is that we never have ever said we’re breaking up. I think the quote is something like, ‘after August ’07, we have no plans.’ But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be plans later. So what’s frustrating for me is that everyone interpreted it as the band is breaking up. And I’m not sure exactly what’s going to happen. We have no plans. But I just want to make it clear from my point of view that the future’s wide open for us.” This provided little solace for fans who were without their beloved barefoot boys for nearly two years, until, almost out of the blue, The String Cheese Incident announced they would be performing at Rothbury in 2009 and the rumors started flying again: Would they tour again? When will they play next? Was this a one-off performance?

By all accounts the Rothbury performance fueled the band members desire to play music together again, and in early 2010 many of the rumors were put to rest when it was announced that the band would play a “handful of Incidents” over the course of the year starting with a three-night stand at the band’s unofficial home, Red Rocks Amphitheatre. They visited another place that is close to their hearts when they set up camp at Horning’s Hideout and finally they closed out the year with two Hulaween shows inside The Mothership in Hampton, VA.

As they demonstrated with their 2010 schedule, the band made it quite clear that, though they do want to play together as String Cheese Incident, they have no intention of mounting the kind of full scale tours that they built a career on. Instead they are again reinventing another paradigm of the music industry by pledging to schedule a few destination events each year that will allow them to play the music they love, while giving their fans the opportunity to commune with the music and the friends that have always made the community that surrounds the band so special.

READ ON for more on the String Cheese Incident…

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