colorado

Disco Biscuits – Bisco Inferno Weekend, May 27 – 30

Words: Alexander Wolff
Images: Jason Woodside

Colorado is a funny place for music these days. This beautiful area has been taking the rest of the country’s bands and turning The Centennial State into their biggest market. The Disco Biscuits appear to be to be the latest victim of what is surely one of the more pleasurable trends of the last few years to develop in this scene. Late May’s Bisco Inferno Weekend would indeed make this point clear to all of those in attendance. While many were nervous about Jon “The Barber” Gutwillig’s guitar playing, as he has been absent from live performance for some time due to a fractured wrist, by the end of the weekend it was as though he’d never broken the damned thing.

With little warning, a fair number of would-be attendees for Thursday’s show at the Boulder Theater found themselves observing a strange phenomenon: Marc Brownstein, responsible for the low end rumble of The Disco Biscuits’ electric pulse, announced to the world via Twitter that the band would play an acoustic set at the Pearl St. Mall, across the way from the theater. Several hundred gathered to watch: I say watch because very few were able to hear the performance, with the exception of a few lucky photographers and the rest of us who could hear Allen Aucoin’s dynamic dance drum beat. Jon “The Barber” Gutwillig’s voice could certainly be heard, but his guitar as well as Brownstein’s bass were both drowned out by the conversations of the crowd. Alas, fun was had by all. The best part for those in attendance seemed to be that the Biscuits themselves were having a ball.

Boulder Theater proved to be the weakest of the three Bisco shows this weekend, but it wasn’t without its moments. The first set was relatively uneventful, with Rivers seeing the first exploration of the night; a short, rocking jam that never got going quite as well as it could have. The Story Of The World segment would have been far more interesting if Aceetobee didn’t have the wet blanket of a Boom Shanker dropped in the middle. The second set was a big improvement, with great improvisations showing up in both Save The Robots and Digital Buddha, and Lunar Pursuit was well placed in the Buddha sandwich. The Spy encore got the crowd going, and was a good choice, displaying several angles of the Biscuits’ sound before wrapping up a night that could have been a better showing.

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