Travel, Music, Drinks

Things to Do in Denver When the Band That You Flew There to See, Cancels at the Last Minute

Well, you make lemonade out of lemons

Travel sure can be a funny thing sometimes. A bit of planning, a bit of luck, a bit of positive thinking and it all works out according to some kind of loose plan. Bob is certainly your uncle most times.

Other times, you plan a trip to a place based on the fact that there is one thing that attracts you to it. If you are like me, it’s often to see a band, when they are not coming to the place where you are.

It’s exciting stuff to combine your twin loves of music and travel to see one of your favourites away from home. Later, you can casually sprinkle references to that time you saw Stevie Wonder in Osaka or Primal Scream in Mexico City. It kind of elevates your level of cool.

In your mind, anyway.

And with that, we made last-minute plans to go and see Placebo at the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver over the (Canadian) Victoria Day long weekend.

This was the last date of an already rescheduled earlier North American tour from last year, which included a Vancouver date. This one didn’t have one, so to see one of my all-time Top 10 bands, some travel was involved.

All was in order and going to plan; we left from Vancouver Friday afternoon after work, made easy work of the border and got to Seattle in the early evening, via a stop for a beer in Bellingham and managed a morning departure from Seattle to Denver.

It was all lining up perfectly. Smooth as creamed corn. Too good to be true? Maybe. But why shouldn’t it be? My karma is intact and good things happen to good people, as I can be heard to say now and again.

However, as we alighted from our Uber, and approached the door, it was clear that something was afoot. Something was rotten in the state of Colorado.

“The Placebo show is canceled, folks. Really sorry”, said the doorperson. I’m not sure she said “really sorry”, but I want to believe she saw the pained expression on my face when I said, “but we flew in”, and felt moved to offer her kind condolences.

I stood there for what felt like a few minutes and worked on picking up my bottom lip from the floor.

Well, now what?

“Yup, that sucks alright. But we’re in Denver, let’s make the most of the night. There has to be some fun to be had”.

That’s what now.

Stop #1 was a two-block shuffle to Tom’s Starlight, to begin the licking of wounds. Set in what must have been a Denny’s at one point — a lengthy bar / lunch counter and booths along the street-facing windows — Andrew the bartender saw us coming a mile away and welcomed us into this refurbished and stylish, albeit relatively empty, tiki lounge. He dutifully listened to the sob story and his answer was twofold beginning with the question “What liquor do you like?” and once he had the answer to that, said, “Let me fix you something”.

Suddenly we were in good hands. The right amount of chit-chat, the right amount of telling of life story (he’s American, after all…that’s what they do) and the right amount of pointers in the right direction.

The next of which was Stop #2 and it was a quick one, just a half block and across the street away, at the Nob Hill Inn

I say quick because the sign on the door told us everything we needed to know. We threw back a bourbon each in record time and were on our way.

ESP Hifi was the #3 stop and the second soft place to land and here we found something a little different. It’s actually a listening bar, meaning that there is a wide array of records on the shelves behind the bar and there is always one playing on one of the turntables and another one ready to go when the current side ends. Entering the dimly lit but warm and welcoming room, we bellied up to the bar as “Jesus of Cool” by Nick Lowe was coming to an end and Donald Fagen’s “The Nightfly’’ was starting. From there it was to some Japanese R+B by Masayoshi Takanaka, then a bit of Kraftwerk, the Cocteau Twins, followed by Wire’s “Pink Flag” and finishing off with Depeche Mode's “Violator” as though he read my mind.

“He” was Jake, who had the musical knowledge and bartending skills to make this a great night. He had an immediate answer to my question of, “What is the one record store I need to get to while I’m here?” (Wax Tracks in Capitol Hill) but even better, he steered us in a better direction when he asked us what our next stop was.

I said, “Death & Co”, the Denver outpost of the well-known New York City bar, and his immediate deadpan answer again was, “Oh, don’t do that. You want to go to the Yacht Club”. Thanks, Jake. You weren’t wrong.

The Yacht Club was stop #4 and the last one of the night. Nondescript from the outside, but with people spilling out into what seemed to be a residential area, this seemed like the right place to wrap up our night in Denver. It has been rated #42 on the list of North America’s Best Bars recently, but by that point, I really couldn’t tell if that number was deserved or not.

So, in the end, the night didn’t turn out as planned. But that’s what happens when you travel sometimes, as I was reminded again. When there’s nothing you can do, you just have to roll with it.

Curious, I googled the next day to see if there had been any explanation for Placebo’s sudden cancellation. I happened upon a Reddit thread of disappointed people, some of whom expressed what seemed to be sincere anger. It turns out that various members of the band contracted Covid at a festival they’d played the week before in Las Vegas. The name of the event, you ask?

Sick New World

You couldn’t make it up, could you? I wish Brian Molko and everyone involved a speedy recovery.