‘s biggest problem is always its best strength: too many great bands, not enough time. The annual festival wrapped up a long and eventful weekend in the Denver music scene with happier circumstances on Saturday. An arsenal of Denver’s finest musicians took over a pocket of blocks in the Golden Triangle neighborhood to celebrate in one quick blast what the city has to offer.
Over at City Hall Amphitheatre, Turner Jackson and Rob4Real of Welcome to the D.O.P.E. Game were holding down the hosting duties for the hip-hop stage. Soul Pros, Planes! H*Wood and more were on the lineup. Planes!, hip-hop’s latest rowdy posse crew poured sweat and gusto into its half hour set. Tracks from their album “New Batch” turned those in the crowd who weren’t familiar into instant fans. JT Running Man’s a cappella verse showed off the band’s true rhyme potential and as a collective, they killed it.
By this time I had to jet over to Broadways for The Bad Creeps and The Dang Dangs, two rocking bands who were screamingly delicious on stage. Half the crowd was wearing black (including this writer) despite the fluctuating cloud cover and temperature. Partygoers were smoking cigarettes and drinking beers on the patio while both bands shredded notes and head banged.
Back over at the hip-hop stage, H*Wood brought his entire band setup complete with two guitarists and a vocalist. H*Wood is one of the best live performers in the city but he seemed to let the band and singer do most of the heavy lifting on Saturday. “Work,” which originally features Amanda Hawkins, went over well sans the singer but H*Wood’s dynamism was largely overshadowed by the band’s instrumentation.
Mr. Midas was last on our schedule before heading over to the main stage for 2 Chainz. Granted, he had to compete with fans leaving to see Mr. Two Necklaces himself but, Midas didn’t let that get in the way. He rocked through tracks from his latest project “Red Cards Green Bottles” and, his delivery was crisp and succinct. He appeared more confident and practiced on stage than we’ve seen him before and it was quite impressive.
Then, all it took was a bit of weaving through crowds of tipsy showcase-ers to get to the day’s main event. Beach balls flew through the air as 2 Chainz pumped up the crowd with “No Lie.” For his part, 2 Chainz couldn’t have had higher spirits. “Feds Watching” is still his best song to see live while screaming the lyrics with your circle of friends.
Diplo proved he is indeed the king of the laser trap constituency with his set. He must have brought enough lights to electrify an entire city and the crowd couldn’t have been more pleased. Though the day had been long and the temperature high, Diplo kept the audience moving, screaming and seizing to the beat for well into the night.
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Ru Johnson is an arts and culture music writer living in Denver. You can follow her on
Evan Semón is a Denver freelance writer and photographer and regular contributor to Reverb. See .
