Over the course of three diverse sets, rang in the new year in style at the on Friday night. As an added bonus, since the band had offered three drum solos in at the previous show, they skipped any drum solos and kept the set breaks to about 25 minutes each.
The Georgia-based Panic has made Colorado its home away from home, setting records for consecutive sellouts at Red Rocks and playing many memorable shows, such as the Sit ‘n’ Ski Tour in 1996, the Larkspur shows in 2001, and the two-night headline run at the 2009 Mile High Music Festival. As the clock wound down on 2010, a member of the Panic crew who has been with the band for 25 years rattled off these and other runs in Colorado, emphasizing the family-like atmosphere. As midnight struck and the confetti guns went crazy, it had all the feeling of a party with 18,000 of your closest friends.
Perhaps to honor that famed (in Panic circles) Sit ‘n’ Ski Tour, Panic played a sit-down acoustic set to get the juices flowing, eliciting roars when singer/guitarist John Bell introduced one song as a “Neil Young song dear to our hearts,” before launching into the tender “Don’t Be Denied,” a song that has always seemed to tie into late Panic guitarist and founding member Michael Houser, especially when Bell sings the line “Pretty soon I met a friend, who played guitar.”
After closing the acoustic set with “Who Do You Belong To?” Bell promised the band would be back in a flash, as more than one person had grumbled about the lengthy set break at Thursday’s show.
About 20 minutes later, the band returned to the stage and launched in a fiery “Holden Oversoul.” On a bluesy “Blackout Blues,” opening act G. Love came out to add harmonic fills, while John “JoJo” Hermann spiraled dizzying piano rolls into a glorious crescendo.
Perhaps it was the first acoustic set, but Herring was tastefully restrained throughout the second set and much of the third, limiting the metal-esque solos and finding a comfortable groove, even on the frenetic “Bust it Big.” Herring wove in and out of a long mid-song jam during “Pleas,” alternately raising and lowering the intensity of the song with soulful precision.
After ringing in the yew year, the band kicked off its first 2011 set with “Disco.” Once again, David Bromberg sat in, singing “Sharon,” a song that, as bassist Dave Schools said, Panic has been playing for “a long time.” Bromberg brought a sultry dirtiness to the song that Panic has never achieved. It sounded like listening to…sex.
Energized by the jam with Bromberg, Panic dropped the bomb with a driving, searing “Imitation Leather Shoes,” following with its own sultriness on a raring “Love Tractor.” On “Postcard,” as Bell sang “This town is nuts, my kind of place,” Hermann and Herring locked in on a spiraling riff that seemed to never want to end.
As Bell picked up a mandolin late in the evening to start “End of the Show,” he tipped a nod to Panic’s second home, saying “Let’s do this again real soon.” Here’s to that!
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Set 1
Ribs And Whiskey, Don’t Be Denied > Wondering, When You Coming Home, Driving Song> Who Do You Belong To?
Set 2
Holden Oversoul, North> Blackout Blues*, Blight> Bust It Big> Pleas> Mr. Soul
Set 3
Disco, Tall Boy, Sharon**, Tongue (Shuffle In A)**, Imitation Leather Shoes> Love Tractor, Postcard, Pilgrims> Tie Your Shoes> End Of The Show> Ain’t Life Grand
E: Blue Indian, Lawyers, Guns, And Money, Action Man
* with G. Love on harmonica
** with David Bromberg on guitar/vocals
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Candace Horgan is a Denver freelance writer/photographer and regular contributor to Reverb. When not writing and shooting, she plays guitar and violin in Denver band the defCATS.
