Cirque du Soleil reliably draws the crowds whenever it hits the Mile High City, with its outlandish costumes, acrobatic choreography and boisterous live music.
For its 2006 Colorado appearance, Cirque will present “Delirium: Turning Music into Motion,” a multimedia event that blends live songs, visuals and dancing. Although the show focuses on a musical rather than acrobatic structure, with 21 tracks culled from Cirque’s catalog, the spectacle remains.
Prerecorded visuals will grace the equivalent of four IMAX screens while dancers, singers and actors traverse the 130-foot-wide stage, populated with volcanoes, gigantic drums and other unfailingly weird dressing.
A whopping 20 trailers and eight tour buses will transport gear for the 145-member show.
Tickets for “Delirium’s” Aug. 30-31 run at the Pepsi Center go on sale at 10 a.m. Monday ($73.50-$129, Ticketmaster)
Widespread Panic shows are a summer rite for many Coloradans, as the beloved jam band regularly sells out every date. Tickets for its June 23-25 stint at Red Rocks shows disappeared shortly after they were announced last week, and its Jazz Aspen Snowmass appearance won’t come until September.
Hungry fans, have no fear. The band will play a pair of late-afternoon shows at Winter Park Resort July 22-23. That should give everyone enough time to soak up its new album, “Earth to America,” which drops June 13. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday. ($45, Ticketmaster)
Carlos Mencia’s brand of observational humor has exploded in popularity since his Comedy Central show, “Mind of Mencia,” debuted last summer. The comedian’s string of stand-up specials and TV guest spots have cemented him as a pop-culture mainstay, but the core of his appeal is his willingness to skewer anything, including occasionally controversial topics like race (especially his Latino heritage) and politics (9/11, the Bush White House). When Mencia returns to Denver for The Punisher Tour on Sept. 15 at the Buell Theatre, expect him to embrace the loose profanity and biting digs that have made him such a stand-up favorite. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday. ($34.50-$44.50, Ticketmaster)
The Raconteurs look great on paper: The pseudo-supergroup consists of The White Stripes’ Jack White, Detroit power-pop fixture Brendan Benson, and Patrick Keeler and Jack Lawrence from Cincinnati retro-rockers The Greenhornes. The straightforward guitar rock on their new album, “Broken Boy Soldiers,” is a departure from White’s sparse, bluesy stuff, but songs like “Steady, as She Goes” sound good in any context.
Mixed reviews of their new album means a live set is their best way to prove themselves, and they’ll have their chance when they visit the Fillmore Auditorium on July 16. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday. ($25.25, Ticketmaster)
