The internationally inspired mini-orchestraPink Martiniand the Boulder-basedBanditsare our picks for the best shows around Denver this week. See you there, and if you don’t make it out, follow our music musings on and our selfies on . If you do, mind where .
Pink Martini
The orchestra is often written off as a purely upper-crust way to spend an evening, best taken in with caviar on your tongue and a tightly tucked silk blouse. As its name suggests, Portland, Ore.’s Pink Martini has fun with that conception — after its start in the stuffiest realm of all, politics. The group was founded when Thomas Lauderdale, a low-level politician, grew weary of the music at fundraisers and decided to do something about it. He formed a band that soon began looking beyond the confines of local politics, and branched out internationally, pulling inspiration (and playing) everywhere from Latin America to Europe. On July 6, the band will bring the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and Rufus Wainwright at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Tickets are $44.95-$59.50 via .
Bandits
Brash, thrashy rock is the last genre you’d associate with the jam-band utopia that is Boulder, but Bandits are working on that. Swirling the zipped-down rock of T. Rex and with psych-sweat of Witchcraft, listening to sister-brother duo LuLu and John Demitro bend the strings in Boulder feels like tripping over a haunted skull in the middle of Pleasantville. The handful of singles the band has released since forming a few years ago pegs them as a genuine artifact of the early 1970s, including “Enough,” its latest, a punishing-yet-poppy anthem that’s Bandits at its best. Catch the track’s vinyl release at Lost Lake Lounge on July 1. The Beeves and Urn will perform in support. Tickets are$8-$12 and are available via.
