A Denver native band, 888, headlined at the Bluebird Theater on Friday, May 13, in a concert put on by channel 93.3.
Another local band, Rumors Follow, started the night off with five songs from their latest EP, Cities of Love. They have been described to sound like a mix between Passion Pit and Walk the Moon, and I think they spun a more modern rock/alternative rock sound on Friday night. Their performance was excellent and got the crowd excited for the two more well known bands who followed them.
New Beat Fund, a band out of Los Angeles, followed up with their music that they have dubbed “G Punk”. Their Bandcamp page claims it to consist of a mixture of pop, reggae, punk, and rock, which is pretty spot-on based on their part of the show.
Their music wasn’t the most attention catching aspect of their performance though. The four musicians walked onto the stage in bright crazy clothes. Their vocalist, Jeff Laliberte, sported a neon orange hawaiian shirt along with sunglasses, a lei and some jeans. The bass player, Paul Laliberte, was dressed very outlandishly though. He sported a pair of overalls, but these weren’t your typical run-of-the-mill, denim overalls. They were made completely of caution tape. His hair looked like they were in dreadlocks, except each lock stuck out in a different direction. It was a look I will not soon forget.
New Beat Fund only played four songs before running out of time. Despite the crowd’s best efforts and cheers, the Bluebird staff didn’t allow them to play one more song.
After about 20 minutes of setup and intermission, the lights once again dimmed and 888’s drummer, Danny Cooper, took the stage and started off one of 888’s songs on their newest release, The Decades EP. Programmer/keyboardist, Aaron Rothe followed and took his place behind his keyboard and computers, and frontman Danny Stills danced onto the stage and took the mic.
The electro-rock band (who used to be a metalcore band called Drop Dead, Gorgeous) performed five songs, closing out the night with their hit song, Critical Mistakes. The song has been spreading internationally and gaining the band lots of popularity.
Stills put on an exciting performance, constantly jumping around the stage as he sang. Behind the band was an ever color-changing fluorescent light setup that formed three eights.
The show was overall an awesome experience (even if you had beer thrown on you from the upper section) and the bands all had incredible live performances. If Rumors Follow, New Beat Fund or 888 perform anytime soon, I’d highly recommend getting tickets.
