Quicksand at Bluebird Theater, 1/15/12

Tom Murphy

Il Cattivo at The Bluebird Theater

The show began with a very focused and forceful set from Il Cattivo. Like Quicksand, the band's music comes from hardcore and metal to create its own form of hard rock. Roughly a third of the way through the set, frontman Brian Hagman joked with the audience about how we could breathe up here, and he sat down at the edge of the stage in imitation of some band or another that always mentions the altitude for lack of anything else to say between songs.

Two songs later, Hagman stood back up and got back to his emotive antics. Some of us have seen the guy perform several times for years but whether he's dancing wildly to the music, shaking his index finger like a hep cat, clapping to get the audience to clap or posing like a caricature of Mick Jagger or Ian Astbury, he never seems like he's faking it, and when you do get that feeling, you can tell he's at least trying to make himself or one of his bandmates laugh in a moment of heightened emotional expression.

Never boring, Il Cattivo collectively put in an especially cohesive performance, and its set ended with the psychedelic "Jesuit." Playing the song this night, the band didn't wander through a tripped out, introspective soundscape as it has often done in the past. Even so, the song was served as the embodiment of a suspension of disbelief and contradictions as it was both controlled and sounding like it could collapse at every moment, and this was just one of the many charms of this band on this night.

Personal Bias: Quicksand is one of those '90s bands, like Unrest and Versus (to name a few), that you hear as an influence on so much that came in their wake. Getting to see Quicksand was a rare privilege.

Random Detail: Before playing "Can Opener" during the encore, Schreifels said, "It's nice to be back on Colfax where I almost got jumped. I think that's kind of a rite of passage in Denver. My Spidey senses warned me just in time." Someone up front joked that it was him or something along those lines. Schreifels laughed and said, "That was you? I thought you looked familiar."

By the Way: We should all be as energetic and passionate about our work as these guys were playing this show.

Quicksand
Bluebird Theater - 1/15/13
Denver, CO

Omission
Unfulfilled
Head To Wall
Fazer
Too Official
Freezing Process
Brown Gargantuan
Lie And Wait
Delusional
Divorce
Slip
Thorn In My Side
Backwards
Dine Alone
How Soon Is Now?
Shovel
Landmine Spring
Encore

Can Opener

Location Info

Venue

Map

Bluebird Theater

3317 E. Colfax Ave., Denver, CO

Category: Music

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