The Ultimate Irony: Smoking Indie Kids Forced to Hike in Order to Enjoy Hipness

Aaaaaaand go!:

The drive to Red Rocks last Friday was, for me, a little stressful, as is every drive to an unfamiliar event or location. But, as with every stressful moment, there was a hint of excitement. I had been looking forward to the Monolith Music Festival for some time now. I finally got to a parking lot, and started the hike up to the venue, laughing internally at the ultimate form of irony occurring around me (smoking indie kids forced to walk a mile up hill to get to the hippest thing going on in our time zone).

Standing in line getting my stuff checked, I found myself being serenaded by the every loving Everything Absent or Distorted (A Love Story). The first time I'd heard them was, actually, just last year at the South Park Music Festival. It was either the year's worth of continuing to play together, or the amazing sound technicians at Red Rocks, but this time around they were one of the most convincing groups I saw at the festival, meaning: they seemed the most together, especially for being such a large group. I couldn't have expected a better welcome than EAOD's best performance to date (that I've seen that is).

Everything Absent or Distorted (A Love Story) - The Exit Parade

From the main stage I went up and then back down another flight of stairs to reach the WOXY.COM stage to see Mason Proper. They had kind of a slow start, performing a few songs sans a member (they kept saying things like "he must have wandered off into the captivating mountainous landscape"). I'd not seen them live yet (as was the case with a bunch of the bands), but from their live set reminded me much of the Weezer/Strokes/dash-of-Hives-and-Stripes early 2000's era of music. It was a nicely refreshing. On top of that, I loved their pop-and-lock minimalistic (though still inventive) drummer. I didn't stay through their whole set, and never got to see their arrant member perform along side his companions, but I'm sure it went over well.

Mason Proper - The World Is Smaller Than You Think

I jauntily walked upstairs to the New Belgium stage, where The Broken West was playing. They reminded me of a groovier Blitzen Trapper, riding the wave of "lets bring back 60's rock n' roll" type thing that seems to have been going on, and getting stronger, for a while now. Truthfully, they didn't hold my attention very long, and I was kind of bored with them. But, in all fairness, other people did seem to be enjoying their set, so they can't be all bad. Maybe I'm just not a big enough fan.

More to come