Haze of Love: I Heart Music

When thinking about fun things to do in Colorado, my mind usually goes to all the awesome outdoor activities. Sometimes it's easy to forget that Denver also has some amazing cultural events. And since we're a pretty big city, we also get a lot of great music acts coming through. Over the last few months, we've been able to check out a few different groups, from large popular bands to local artists who we actually know.

The first of our series of concerts was back in April when we went to see one of our favorite bands for a second time. Since the last concert, fun. has completely exploded in mainstream music. I'm sure anyone reading this has heard their recent hit from their new album, "We Are Young." While I'm very happy they're having so much success, I definitely miss the days when no one knew who they were (because I'm hipster like that). But they still put on a really good live show, just with a few more audience members.

After the opening act, Sleeper Agent...

Sleeper Agent was pretty good.

Then it was time for fun.!

Rocking out at the Ogden!

My favorite part of the show was when the whole back-up band left the stage, leaving just the three main members. They played my favorite song ever ("Be Calm") with a sort of unplugged vibe. Super cool.

While we'll continue to love fun. despite their massive mainstream success, their surge in popularity is certainly making it difficult to keep seeing their shows. Apparently, they recently announced an upcoming show in Denver, and sold out before we'd even heard about it. Guess we'll be waiting for the next time round.

A couple weeks later, I got to have a girls' night out at a concert with my buddy Melissa. We went to see Ingrid Michaelson in Boulder. She's a very "girls' night out" type of artist, and that's cool.

The opening act, Harper Blynn, was also pretty cool:

Then Ingrid rocked out. She played some songs with her back-up band and others alone on her piano. The whole band even came out front and sang a song a cappella. And she told some pretty funny stories, too.

Our final music event of the spring was a CD release party for Instant Empire, a local band whose lead singer happens to be an old co-worker of Matt's. The show was at a cool little pizza place/live music venue called The Walnut Room. It was a little hipster, so it was entertaining watching all the people drinking PBR in their flannel shirts. Then I realized that I was wearing skinny jeans, thick-rimmed glasses, and my Zooey Deschanel bangs, so I totally fit right in with the hipster crowd. Oh, well...

Anyway, the show was awesome, and it was super cool to know someone in the band. Of course, they had a lot of their friends and family there to support the release of their CD, so a lot of the audience knew the band... but we were still super cool.