Pet Shop Boys
It’s more than fair to compliment the Pet Shop Boys for their original live show, which was possibly the brightest and silliest spectacular to ever play the Paramount Theatre.
When sunglassed synth man Chris Lowe and elegant emcee/singer Neil Tennant took to the Paramount’s stage Monday, they did so with grace, style, bass, all the hits, two backup dancers and three singers. The two career-spanning sets were artfully flamboyant, packed with sombreros, sequins and the nonsensical. At one point, the stage was filled with “soldiers” wearing gold helmets, rainbow ribbons and loads of bling.
The music was solid, and the duo showcased its nearly flawless dance-pop with a knowing wink and a chorus-line kick. The second set was packed with goodness from “West End Girls” to “It’s a Sin,” “Always on My Mind” to their thoroughly bizarre, alternate-reality medley of U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name” and Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”
Before delving into the low-key “Home and Dry,” Tennant said, “We couldn’t come to Colorado without playing acoustic.” It was a curious, unexplained sentiment, especially since the comment would have worked much better in front of their encore-closing Village People cover, “Go West.”
– Ricardo Baca
Citizen Cope
Halfway through the second of Citizen Cope’s two sleepy sold-out shows at the Boulder Fox, I started wondering why I’m always carping that bands don’t play two-
hour sets anymore. CC (a.k.a. Clarence Greenberg, pictured at left) played forever, alternating sad acoustic folkers with reggae rasta jammers.
You know CC from the ubiquitous “Sideways,” a plaintive lament (what else?), which in 2004 got Greenberg lumped into the John Mayer/Jack Johnson “now which one is he?” genre. But he distinguishes himself with flashes of Santana and Michael Franti, with just a touch of Mason Jennings.
He has only one truly infectious rocker, the superior new “Brother Lee,” which he buried late in the Oct. 26 set. The band would have set an entirely different tone for the yawning evening had it opened with this gem.
But this night wasn’t for me. It was for my niece Brittany; CC’s breakout 2004 disc, “The Clarence Greenberg Recordings,” has become the soundtrack to her life. And that makes Clarence OK with me.
– John Moore
Cat-a-Tac
When Colorado’s weather decides to change, get out of the way. That was the feeling Oct. 25 at the Larimer Lounge when Cat-a-Tac took the stage. As the Denver indie quartet sound-checked, the back porch doors remained wide open, the air swirling with dead leaves and cigarette-pack cellophane. By the time the set started, the temperature had dropped 15 degrees, icy tendrils of air reaching into the club in advance of the snow.
Despite this, the back doors remained open as the short-sleeved band played, admirably ignoring the icy temps and pressing on even when the power cut out. The faulty power strip fixed, Cat-a-Tac dropped a handful of excellent new songs, including the rumbling, delightfully garage-steeped “Credit Whore.” That song added grit to the band’s jangly, melodic pop tunes, although new song “Burned” also recalled the work on its 2005 self-titled EP.
Horace Van Von, a group consisting of members of local indie luminaries (Laylights, Machine Gun Blues, etc.), followed with an improvised but surprisingly hard-
hitting set, adding an exclamation point to a night of cozy music and chilly weather.
– John Wenzel
