While the influx of major brands into all sectors of independent art over the past decade or so has certainly seen a large swath of fans and critics let out a collective groan; it is events like Project Pabst that at least let us know that some corporations are putting their efforts in the right places. Last Saturday, a pair of us Ninjas set out into one of Denver’s most diversely beautiful neighborhoods, The Five Points/RiNo Arts District (which was conveniently also this writer’s own hood) to enjoy one of the more eclectically diverse days of music we’ve consumed in the Centennial State in years.
We arrived fresh on a sweltering afternoon just in time to see Brooklyn synth-pop outfit Small Black, who if you’ve followed us for some time, know we have developed quite the soft spot for -especially after playing our Halloween TMN Showcase last year. The four-piece paced the day wonderfully, ranging their sound from wistful electro-indie-pop, to chillwave, to lofi 80’s pop, and all of those murky spaces in between. After running through a slate of singles off of last year’s LP Best Blues, Small Black arced their set brilliantly, landing upon their shining star “No Stranger” to wrap up an hour-long set.
Check out the rest of our Project Pabst: Denver review after the jump!
Next up on the aptly titled ‘Laser Horse’ stage was TMN regular, dance music darling and all-around bad-ass cypher mutilator, K. Flay. Accompanied by one live drummer -who kept pace on K’s wonky, two-step beats like a surgeon- K.Flay sparked the still expanding crowd with a crisply curated set including staples like the Louis the Child feature “It’s Strange” and her viral web smash “FML”. It’s great to see K. Flay’s stage presence and command improve with every outing, and the Stanford U grad more than got things moving on a balmy Denver afternoon.
As temperatures continued to climb, standing on top of the anthracite asphalt became less and less appealing. So after a quick PBR refuel, (yes, we were all the way in at this point) this writer took in one of the most frenetic 30 minutes of music the whole day at Baroness. The Georgia based metal outfit would have quite literally torn the roof off of the venue had we not been outside, and powered through an exhibition of raw, thrashy ferocity and measured, artistic mastery of their instruments. As this writer’s first live Baroness experience, those five or six tunes, which included their Purple LP anthem “Shock Me”, certainly surpassed even my own expectations.
From there, another excellently curated change of pace was in order in the form of Mississippi born rapper and producer Big K.R.I.T. Now let’s be real. One does not simply attend a Big K.R.I.T. show based off of his artistic merit. No friends, it’s a damn party when K.R.I.T. wields the mic like a weapon, and the fluid linguist rocked through a mid-day set that gave us all a chance to get our lean on. From there it was a bit of a blur as we hopped around between L.A. garage-punks FIDLAR and Canadian noise-rock outfit METZ who were playing in the muggy Larimer Lounge; which was housing the true hardcores for much of the day.
This was by far the rowdiest stretch of the day, so after a brief respite in the PBR-Cade (stop it, stop it), it was time for this writer to relive some of life’s earliest music memories with The Violent Femmes.
First things first, the Femmes have still got it in regards to live musical performance. Their music has always transcended time; hell “Blister In The Sun”, which still sounds like an angsty L.A. indie troupe could have written and released it in present day, came out over 30 years ago in 1983. Somehow their early 90’s attire which included some pretty sweet cargo shorts made their performance even more endearing, and luckily for us, all the hits were accounted for. “Gone Daddy Gone”, “Add It Up”, “American Music”, “Kiss Off”; hit after hit The Violent Femmes held up their end of the bargain and played the set we’d all hoped for. With the full backing of a complete jazz band, The Femmes shut their set down to perhaps the biggest collective crowd of the day.
After a quick jaunt back down Larimer Street, it was time for California pop-rock sweethearts Best Coast. Originally, Project Pabst’s lineup had featured Courtney Barnett, however after a last-minute call-up to the big leagues as Saturday Night Live’s performer du jour, Bethany Cosentino and Co. were flown in to keep things going. Although self-admittedly they’d not played since February, and took a few songs to get their feet back under them, Best Coast hit their stride about halfway through their hour long block. Cosentino’s stage presence fumbled a few times, but dammit if her grace and effervescent aura didn’t make up for every minor stumble of mouth. While their material may be slightly deeper than surface level, cookie-cutter pop; Best Coast always provide their audience with the kind of sing-songy longing we held onto in our preteen years. Not to mention, she reached out and touched this writer’s hand and I may or may not have kept it unwashed for a few days…. Anyhow, where were we?
We wrapped our day with local boys turned international darlings, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats. While we’re not trying to toor our own proverbial horn, we’ve had the pleasure of catching Nathaniel and his band of Mile-High misfits probably close to twenty times over the years of covering Denver music, so while we dearly do love those boys, it was time to wind things down and listen to the rest of their set from the comfort of our own apartment patio.
All in all, the big-wigs at PBR pulled off a beautiful ‘relevance-meets-nostalgia’ vibe on their Denver stop, and with everything being just a few blocks from home, it’s safe to say we may have found a new favorite day amongst Denver’s bustling event schedule.
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY & COPYRIGHT OF AUBRA TIDWELL FOR THE MUSIC NINJA
