Ciara
Ciara ignited her Tuesday-night show at the Fillmore with surprising aggression: First the mammoth smash “Goodies” and then the down-tempo club banger “Oh.”
Ciara only has one record and three or four singles to work with, so kicking things off with two of those singles was brave – and rewarding. It set the tone high for the mostly teenage audience, and it kept the energy going through the short set’s lulls, some of which came via her upcoming release, “The Evolution,” due in December.
Ciara alternated between singing and lip-syncing, and her stage show made up for its lack of DJ/musicians with its countless loose-limbed dancers. Ciara’s moves and outfits walked that NC-17 line, but it was obvious the show – and the music – was made for a median audience of high schoolers.
– Ricardo Baca
Violist Geraldine Walther
Walther, who joined the celebrated Takács Quartet in 2005, has quickly proved her mettle as a world-class chamber musician.
But during a Sunday afternoon recital in Grusin Hall at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where the quartet is in residence, Walther showed she is a first-rate soloist as well.
After a ho-hum take on a Bach sonata, she ratcheted up the intensity a few notches, offering a passionate performance of Johannes Brahms’ Viola Sonata No. 2 in E flat, Op. 120, capturing the full, burnished flavor of this work.
But the concert’s highlight was Ernest Bloch’s rarely heard Suite for Viola and Piano (1919), a sometimes biting, often unsettled modern masterpiece tinged with a non-specific Jewish flavor.
Ably backed by pianist Roy Bogas, she delivered an interpretation of soulful depth and visceral power, deftly handling the work’s considerable technical challenges and sensitively negotiating its ever-shifting, often murky emotional currents.
– Kyle MacMillan
American Relay
American Relay makes music that belongs in the unpredictable murk of the Mississippi Delta, so running into them in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood is always a welcome juxtaposition. The Denver blues-garage two-piece threw down a relentless set at the Lion’s Lair on Nov. 3, and the heavy musical slams and the blasting PA left the crowd a bit shellshocked.
The group barely stopped to breathe, let alone tune its guitar, at the Lair. The passionate outpouring was as sweaty as it was distorted. Imagine a whiskey-fueled bar brawl between the late R.L. Burnside, Hank III and Deadboy & the Elephantmen’s Dax Riggs and you’ll see American Relay somewhere in there, throwing forceful punches but also holding up those who came before them with thankful admiration.
– Ricardo Baca
Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams
This upstate New York band handles its silly name and kitchen-sink approach to songwriting with a self-effacing monologue and a knowing tip of the hat. (Its latest release is titled “Flapjacks From the Sky.”) And when they played at Lannie’s on Sunday, they proved themselves one of the most diverse bands touring America.
It’s an admirable distinction, but it’s not always quality. In its first set alone, the group covered Hank Williams and unleashed a progged-out neo-’60s jam that could have been an homage to either Syd Barrett or Geddy Lee. The music was sometimes nebulous, but the band was best when it stuck to its perverse, Dylanesque dark-country music, which resonated richly in the warm room.
– Ricardo Baca
