Tones of Home’s stalwart writers Nathan and Chad temporarily suspended their day jobs to head to Morrision, CO for a chance to see four great bands in the span of two days. Summer is the best outdoor concert season and Red Rocks Amphitheater is an unparalleled North American outdoor venue, literally sculpted out the Rocky Mountain foothills, a twenty minute Uber ride from downtown Denver (and trust us, your Uber driver will literally scale the mountain side and drop you right at the front entrance). Here are our reactions to the greatness that was:

Real Estate

Chad: I’ve liked Real Estate for years, since picking up their vinyl EP, Reality from a Houston, TX record store with my friend Thomas. Real Estate channels blissful jangle-pop that is often chill, down-tempo, and sometimes sounds as if its being played underwater. Reality contains my still all time favorite Real Estate jam Dumb Luck. Fast forward a few years, and Real Estate has evolved into a mainstream success for lovers of laid back indie rock, with two widely popular LPs in the books. Real Estate, with great fidelity to their studio work, did their job perfectly opening for The National, setting up the vibe and chilling everyone out as if the staggeringly beautiful mountains and landscapes of Red Rocks weren’t relaxing enough. 

The National

Chad: I’ll be the first to admit that while I had a lot of respect for The National going in and definitely enjoyed their 2013 LP smash hit Trouble Will Find Me, this was of the four artists, the band I was least knowledgeable about. My insecurities only got worse at the show. Throughout the set, I hilariously observed a group of thirteen year old kids belting out each song lyric line by line along with their dad, clearly more prepared and ready for getting rocked by the National than I was. It was a comical addition to an already strange mash up of Red Rocks goers (like Wilco, this show pulled an audience of millennial hipster types and soccer dads equally). Something tells me that with Denver so close-by, there is always a diverse bunch of hard working folks and their kids having a good time up in Morrison

Nathan: Over the past few years since the release of Trouble Will Find Me, The National has become one of my all-time favorite bands.  Before this trip I had never gotten the opportunity to see them play live.  They did not let me down with their performance.  Singer Matt Berninger is one of the most intense live vocalists you will ever see.  Backed by his “band of brothers” the Dessner and Devendorf brothers Matt brought the National’s dark and brooding brand of music to life.  This was especially apparent during the show stopping tracks “Terrible Love” and “Fake Empire.”  They drew the audience in ,some too much as several people near us felt they needed to LOUDLY show off their knowledge of the lyrics with unwanted obnoxious and off-key sing alongs.  Although this performance was powerful and covered many of their best songs, I would eventually like the opportunity to see them in a more intimate venue as I feel this would intensify the emotion of their music even more so then this show at Red Rocks did. 

Savages

Chad: I missed out on catching the vicious all-female outfit Savages earlier in the year and anticipated a brutal thrashing from the London-based ear-drum assassins. What I got wasn’t as loud as I expected, but I assume that was some constraint of the venue. At Red Rocks, bands play at normal volume and allow the natural acoustics of the canyon to funnel the sounds upward. Whatever effect it had, Savages didn’t make my ear drums bleed, which was probably a good thing considering LCD was to follow, but they made up for it in terms of relentless reverb and obscene power chants. A personal highlight for me was Savages’s cover one of another destroyer of ear-drums from the 1970s,  Suicide, with the track Dream Baby Dream. 

Nathan: This is my second time seeing Savages live this year. Earlier this year I wrote about a show they played at Trees in Dallas.  This was a totally different feel.  Whereas that show was in a smaller venue with far fewer people, all in attendance at that show were hardcore fans that sang along to everyone of singer Jenny Beth’s lyrics.  Unfortunately since they are so different from headliner LCD Soundsystem, the bombastic appeal of their in your face post punk fury was lost on many in attendance.  They did not let this affect their performance at all.  They managed to pack this large venue with their trademark booming and intense barrier pushing musical assault. The highlight for me was the tremendous “T.I.W.Y.G.” It is a song that is so powerful that even the people who were only there for the LCD Soundsytem set even looked up to join in on the chaos.   I loved having the opportunity to see them play such a different venue then the one I had seen them play months before.  Savages always know how to bring it and I look forward to seeing them live many more times in the future. 

 

LCD Soundsystem

Chad: Far and above for me, this was one of the most anticipated live shows I’ve ever waited for, right up there with Jesus and the Mary Chain last year. Up until a few months ago, LCD were done, finished, forever changed, like Frodo and the Shire, they were never to return. 

But alas, in a flash, all at once, they’re just back? Frontman James Murphy decided on a whim to set out a respectable 2016 tour to reboot the entire thing, and perhaps, set up for a new album? One things for sure, we got no news about any new ventures during the show, but who cares, 

What respectable late-20s suburban kid doesn’t get ants in their pants at the thought of jiving to Dance yourself clean, just one more time?!?

Like sugared up kids waiting for our turn on the bounce-house, Nathan an I sat giddy with anticipation in the blustery, post-thunderstorm air with 9,000 other nostalgics waiting for LCD to pull a Jon Snow, and come…. right…..back…..

What we got is hard to put into words, but yes, they played almost everything we wanted and more, at some point, a large disco ball was involved, the audience was entirely entrapped with each track, Someone Great still makes me cry, we all danced our asses off and tried not to fall off the steep rocky bleachers.

Like the large eastern thunderstorm that played backdrop to the spectacle, lights flashed, walls shook, the pressure was lifted, and it rained something wonderful. 

Nathan: As much as I love the National, LCD Soundsystem was the band that I was looking forward to seeing the most live.  This was mostly due to the fact that I got into them after James Murphy had disbanded the project to pursue other interests. Chad and I both rejoiced the day we found out he was reforming a group and knew that at some point we would venture out somewhere to see them out on tour.

Although I already had high expectations for this show, I knew these expectations would be exceeded seconds into the opener “US VS Them.”  It seems almost as if the venue was made exclusively for LCD to perform in.  I have been to countless concerts over the past few years and none have come close to the level of audience engagement this one had.  Literally everyone I could see in the crowd was dancing and having a good time.  It was a joyous scene seeing most people neglect their phones and just focus on feeling the powerful vibes being transported through the music. 

The song selection for the concert also made it very special.  They played all of their biggest songs and you could see people light up when they began to make out the opening verses of their favorite LCD tunes.  For me personally these were “I Can Change”, “Someone Great”, and “Dance Yourself Clean.”  The great thing about these songs is they are all very different musically, showing that just because LCD is known as an electronic act they cover a wide variety of different tones and elements across the musical spectrum.

This concert also featured one of the strangest/ oddly glorious ends to a concert I have ever seen.  They announced it would be the last song launching into the perfect closer “All My Friends.”  It sounded great and everyone went nuts as James Murphy and company walked off stage.  However, they popped out again a few minutes later with Murphy saying one of the guitar players had an instrument malfunction and that the way the song was played “hurt his heart”, so he asked if they could play it again.  So we ended up with a second encore of the same song, with everyone in the audience getting more worked up then they had the first time!  It was a very strange but somehow fitting in to one of the best concerts I have ever attended.  As we headed down the mountain to catch a Lyft we were left thinking about the powerful impact of the concert, wishing that we would have been able to stay one more night to see LCD perform another spiritual set at Red Rocks the next night.