Indie rock fans would have been hard-pressed to find a better lineup this summer than that of the Monolith Festival, taking over Red Rocks on Saturday and Sunday with headliners Justice and DeVotchKa. Never heard of Justice? And DeVotchKa’s not on your favorite radio station? That’s the point. Monolith is about the discovery of new music, and these promoters have done all the work for you. Buy a ticket and explore. And use our guide below to fine-tune your festival itinerary.
The Monolith Lists
With its 60-plus bands, five stages and two days of music, Monolith can be a daunting beast. We’ve broken the festival down into quick-and-easy lists for your reference and understanding. You prefer English buzz bands over the hot Australian dance acts? You like loud rock better than hip-hop or the straightforward indie stuff? It’s all here. Ricardo Baca
Super-hot U.K. Bands
The Kills. No-frills, melodic garage out of London? O yes.
The Fratellis. Glasgow’s own know their way around a catchy hook.
Foals. These arty kids from Oxford love their minimalist pops, clicks.
Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip. Big beats and thoughtful rhymes found here.
Does It Offend You, Yeah? Their dance rock is simple — and dangerously fun.
Local Bands You Should Know By Now
DeVotchKa. The perfect, pop- oriented Balkan-mariachi-folk hybrid.
Dressy Bessy. Sunny pop, goliath hooks, blinding smiles.
Moonspeed. Soaked in reverb, the shoegazey spirit of Bright Channel lives on.
The Chain Gang of 1974. Giant, dancey beats — soon on tour with 3Oh!3.
Paper Bird. Anachronistic music and a lovely, winning performance.
The Wheel. Rapturously intense singer-songwriter territory.
We Come From the Land Down Under
Cut Copy. With these Melbourne kids, it’s like the ’80s being reborn. In a good way.
Liam Finn. He has a famous dad, yeah, but this New Zealander has the makings of a famous musician himself.
The Presets. The kids in Sydney like to dance, and this is their soundtrack.
We Like It Loud
A Place to Bury Strangers. Noisy shoegaze music lives on in these Brooklyn boys, who make their own guitar effects pedals.
The Giraffes. Serious attitude. Serious guitars. Serious rock. Serious moustaches. Serious genital jokes.
The Night Marchers. The man behind Rocket From the Crypt — Speedo, a.k.a. John Reis — rises again.
Silversun Pickups. Gauzy pop with atmospheric freckles and Billy Corganesque vocals.
Hip-hop at an Indie Rock Festival
Atmosphere. Thought emo only applied to punk, hardcore and Dashboard Confessional? Think again.
Del tha Funkee Homosapien. His rhymes are real, and his talent is undeniable.
Micky Avalon. Do the Jane Fonda with this nasty MC. Don’t know how? Look it up on YouTube.
We Heart Dance Music
Justice. The dirtiest disco beats since Daft Punk come from these French lads. YouTube these four letters to see what we mean: DVNO.
Cut Copy. See above. These boys make feel-good dance music.
Holy F**k. The artier, glitchier, more unpredictable approach to dance music.
The Presets. See above. Live- performance dance music is back in rock clubs, where it belongs.
Tokyo Police Club. These Canadians specialize in the sing- along, fuzzy, full-band ragers.
CSS. Cut Copy is to the ’80s what these Brazilians are to the ’70s.
Big Beards, Rad Music
The Avett Brothers. North Carolina banjo-punk, with the occasional ballad.
Band of Horses. Crisp, ready- for-the-stadium South Carolina atmospheric rock.
Akron/Family. Freak folk. Avant-garde pop. Psychotic gospel. All of the above.
Hearts of Palm. Happy songs about honest people, sung by honest, happy people.
TV on the Radio. Refreshingly soulful approach to electro-rock. From New York.
Three Bands You Haven’t Heard Yet: By AEG Live’s Don Strasburg
Pop Levi: “I don’t know if he’s ever played Denver before, but his music is just awesome.”
Holy F**k: “I did not get to see them at the Larimer, but this band has the goods. Everybody I’ve heard says they deliver live.”
Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip: ” ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’ was probably the best YouTube video of last year. I’m really looking forward to seeing these guys live.”
Monolith’s future hangs on ticket sales
After Monolith’s poor ticket sales in its debut year last summer, some industry insiders were saying the festival’s days might be numbered. The word on the street: If the festival doesn’t sell more tickets this year, there won’t be a Monolith 2009.
For now, the events co-promoters are saying it’s too early to tell.
“We’re pleased with sales right now,” said AEG Live’s Don Strasburg, the event’s co-promoter, “however, we have to evaluate every event to see whether it works, and we’ll do that after the fact.”
Strasburg and his colleagues produce Monolith with Josh Baker and Matt Fecher, who developed the idea of a two-day indie rock festival at Red Rocks a couple of years ago with the city of Denver.
“If we have anything to say about it,” Baker said this week, “there will be a Monolith Festival next year.”
After low Monolith 2007 numbers, AEG Live created the more mainstream Mile High Music Festival, which shattered first-year expectations with attendance near 90,000 over two days at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City. With Red Rocks’ capacity of 9,450, Monolith is a much smaller event — but there were moments last year when the main area was less than half-full.
Most festivals take time to grow. Monolith has always been a three-year plan, Baker said. He hopes AEG Live will stand with him throughout that growing period.
“In my ideal world, there will be a Monolith 2009,” Strasburg said.
But sources have told The Denver Post that AEG Live may pull out of Monolith if this year’s numbers are disappointing. Baker has high expectations of this year — noting that kids notoriously buy their tickets late. If his partner pulls out, though, he’s ready to push forward.
“If we don’t have a promoter partner next year, we’ll play it by ear and see what happens,” Baker said about the possibility. “It wouldn’t be fun to have them go away, but we’d love to continue to do it with their blessing and seek out new partnerships.”
Ricardo Baca
For Red Rocks headliner Justice, the crowd makes all the difference
Dance-rock duo Justice has made a lot of noise since releasing its disco-house remix of Simian’s “We Are Your Friends” five years ago.
The full-length record that followed proved the ensemble’s worth as producers of high-energy, rock-zapping dance music, and their many world tours have secured Parisians Gaspard Auge and Xavier de Rosnay’s places atop the live-performance dance circuit.
Ahead of the band’s headlining turn at the Monolith Festival on Sunday, we talked with Auge about Justice’s sound, the instrumentation behind the big, illuminated cross that is their symbol on stage and their plans to keep playing “We Are Your Friends” until the crowds stop singing along.
Q: What kind of equipment do you have back there behind the cross?
A: We have this synthesizer built in Los Angeles, which provides the sounds we’re using. It’s like a giant expander, a MIDI controlled by the computer sequencers and keyboards we have on stage.
Q: How much of the show is actually played live?
A: We have all the split parts of the album tracks and the remixes we did at the same speed, same key, so we are trying to build the most efficient, 1-hour sequence with all these elements. And we play a few keyboard parts over it.
Q: Are you playing music for yourself or for the crowd?
A: The crowd makes it a good or bad show. No matter if we make loads of mistakes or play a flawless show, the crowd’s reaction always makes the difference.
Q: What’s your overall goal at a show?
A: Blood, sweat and tears.
Q: It’s no secret that you guys are fans of rock ‘n’ roll, given your music’s tone. Would you say rock is your greatest inspiration, outside of electronic music?
A: Rock ‘n’ roll is part of our influences, as is disco, classical music, yard rock, R&B — but we consider ourselves a modern-day disco band.
Q: And what about the latest crop of rock bands? Any new bands that have made an impact on you?
A: We’re huge fans of Midnight Juggernauts and MGMT, speaking of new bands.
Q: I’ve seen you guys a couple of times, and both times you’ve played your Simian remix, “We Are Your Friends,” in some form. That remix is almost 5 years old, isn’t it? Are you guys still loving the song, or are you planning on phasing it out of your sets?
A: This is actually the first track we ever did, using the vocals of a Simian track. Simian was the former band of the guys in Simian Mobile Disco. And so far, people are still singing along.
Q: How did you guys come up with the set you use — the illuminated cross, the towers of speakers, the aesthetic?
A: We wanted to have something different from the ’90s, laser, high-tech rave aesthetic, so we went for something between “Spinal Tap” and “Phantom of the Paradise” with a ’70s rock-show feeling.
Q: Is the cross literal? Are you guys Christians?
A: We’re not trying to push any other message than gathering people in a room and making them deaf and blind. But we are Christian, though.
Q: The widespread idea in the States is that you guys and Daft Punk are tight. Is that true?
A: We met them a couple of times, but we’re not tight. There are also some rumors that we’re the same guys.
Ricardo Baca
