Are Denver audiences the best in the West? Electric Six certainly thinks so.
Dick Valentine, frontman of metal-disco-electronic-garage band , has a way with audiences thatap almost as eccentric, explosive and hilarious as the band’s music. Just watching them presents a risk of over-stimulation, and if you get swept up in the aura — as most audiences tend to — exhaustion is almost assured. After all, as Valentine quipped early in their set in one of many comedic remarks, “Itap exhausting constantly doing all the right moves!”
He and his five cohorts had their way with a packed last Thursday night for a good 80 minutes, alternating sounds between hyper-sexual dance, crisp metal, psychedelic garage and underground electronica easily, often within the same song. Valentine (a.k.a. Tyler Spencer) was joined by guitarists Johnny Na$hinal (John Nash) and the Colonel (Zach Shipps), keyboardist Tait Nucleus (Christopher Tait), bassist Smorgasbord! (Keith Thompson) and drummer Percussion World (Mike Alonso), looking at times like a slightly older and grayer Diedrich Bader (from “The Drew Carey Show”), and he never stopped playing the comedian.
Aside from constantly referring to Alonso as “Rich Karlis’ kid,” (the famed past Denver Broncos kicker), and encouraging any and all to “feel free to ask him any questions about the punting team,” he half convinced us that the band was still “opening for Eddie Money at the Mohican Sun in Connecticut” afternoons before each show on the tour. Later he lamented his life, pointing out that “The sad reality of this rock star existence is that I’m gonna die!”
And the audience of course loved him as he mentioned that the Denver crowd stood head and shoulders above any other, especially from towns like Salt Lake City or Cheyenne, Wyo. “You all are a cut above all of the dipshittery and jackassitude” rife in other cities. Except that we were all sure itap something he probably says to all the fans.
The sextet played a thick set of their hits, including “Danger! High Voltage,” “Dance Commander,” “Down at McDonnelzzzz” and of course the seminal (ahem) “Gay Bar,” met by an explosion of bouncing and popping in the audience, and stretched for a few minutes by an interlude backed by a jazzy strumming of the Champs’ “Tequila.” The selection had the majority of the crowd forming into dance circles, and pulling even the most hesitant wallflowers in as well, eventually leading to an incendiary and flagrant disco atmosphere — somewhat incongruous for the Larimer Lounge. The mix worked well, nonetheless.
They came back onstage to play a dance trilogy for an encore, as Valentine explained that they had come to play not 12 songs, but “15 songs. Seven for rock, seven for roll — fifteen songs!”
New York band opened for the Six, displaying an ambitious, if not entirely successful, blend of White Stripes, Jon Spencer’s Blues Explosion and some rock ‘n roll evangelism from only a guitarist and drummer. Unfortunately, their set sounded more like an extended practice with missing band members than a solid duo.
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Billy Thieme is a Denver-based writer, an old-school punk and a huge follower of Denver’s vibrant local music scene. Follow Billy’s explorations at , and his giglist at .
