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Xavier Rudd in Denver 4.29.11


Words & Photos By J-man

We arrived at The Ogden Theatre just as the show was starting and were greeted with a full page waiver to read over and sign regarding the selling of Xavier Rudd photos. Is there a market for photos of Xavier Rudd? Entering the sold out venue, I asked our friend Michelle
how much she paid for her ticket. I was informed that the ticket was $30. I noticed the theatre was packed with dudes that were drunk and draped over their girlfriends, and then a solo Xavier Rudd took the stage...

The set started out with a decent amount of energy as Xavier played guitar along with a bit of didgeridoo work and kick drumming. He played several of his more popular tunes. I found myself enjoying the music, but as his jams began to not go anywhere, I became bored.

As I looked around there were people talking, acting like drunken children and generally not paying much attention to the show. As the set progressed, the energy was sucked out of the room. The pace of the music became slower and the length of the tunes shortened. In an attempt to regain the attention of the crowd, Xavier threw out a "How are you Denver?" and "It's good to be back in Colorado" for good measure. It worked... like clockwork.

"Did he just say Denver?" I
heard a drunkard near me inquire.

"Yup." I said, in a questioning voice.

"Yeah!" the guy yelled at the top of his lungs.

The crowd was eating it up. In between songs he would bow, hold up his guitar, or put his hands together in zen-like fashion. It came off as cheesy... and the crowd loved it.

He played several songs in a short amount of time and as I reflected on his musical ability, I felt that, yes, the act of playing multiple instruments is difficult. The instrumentation in itself, however, was severely lacking. Worst of all, just when I thought we had seen most of the cheesy nonsense, Xavier laid down his ace in the hole, a Bob Marley cover as the first encore. With that, I threw my hands up in the air and was outside of The Ogden before the second verse.

The general concensus was that the show was "amazing" and "incredible". It was awful. I was bored out of my mind and could not have imagined paying $30 to see what I saw that night.

www.xavierrudd.com

Photo Gallery From The Show

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Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 20, 2011 at 2:28 PM

    Caught him at All Good '06. Had High Hopes. They were destroyed. Really really really boring stuff right there.

    ReplyDelete

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