Review: STS9 "Live PA Set" Bluebird Theater, Denver CO Jan 26, 2009

The STS9 "Live PA Sets" have always been a hit or miss outing for me. STS9 announced they were doing a Winter Tour favoring the laptops over live instruments at smaller venues and I was not immediately interested. Plus, the Colorado run of Sunday (Ft. Collins) - Monday (Denver) - Tuesday (Boulder) did not fit well into my party on the weekend/work during the week schedule. I was persuaded to give the PA Set a shot from friends who enjoyed the show in Ft. Collins the night before. I ended up getting an extra ticket the day of the show from a friend.

I enjoyed the show more than I thought I would. Zach played drums maybe 2/3 of the time while Murph seemed to focus on the synth bass lines. Phipps and Hunter were turning knobs and clicking the mouse. Jeffrey was absent, not sure why.

Simply put, the show was good, not great. The set focused on newer songs from the Peaceblaster era of STS9. A lot of it was simply re-mixes of songs if that makes any sense. We got 1 big set about 2 hours long. The only older song I recognized was towards the end and was one of my favorites- Arigato. Now looking back perhaps the best way I can describe it is STS9 is trying to play electronica with some hip-hop to the jamtronica custy crowd, and we are happily lapping it up. I'm no electronica expert, and I might be a custy. I call it like I see it.

You will see from the video the very cool LED light set up at the front of the stage and back of the stage. I hope to see more and more LED setups like the one I saw on Monday.