TAUK just wrapped up two nights along the Colorado Front Range, with a Thursday night performance at The Aggie Theatre in Fort Collins and a Friday night performance at The Ogden Theatre in Denver for St. Patrick’s Day. The four-piece showed some serious love to Denver and Fort Collins, bringing their high-energy blend of funk, jazz, progressive rock, and hip-hop to eager fans stoked on their return to the state. You can check out photo galleries of the past two nights. The first gallery features photos from TAUK’s Fort Collins show courtesy of Alan Westman, and the second gallery contains photos from their Denver show courtesy of Kaleigh Mathis. You can also read a review of TAUK’s Friday-night St. Patrick’s Day performance at the Odgen below, courtesy of Nate Etter. Tonight, the band heads to Durango tonight for their show at the Animas City Theatre.
There are few better excuses to hit the town, knock a few back, and go see live music than St. Patrick’s Day. Friday night in Denver, jam favorites TAUK teamed up with two top-notch Front Range acts in Eminence Ensemble and Greener Grounds to put together a rowdy holiday bill at the Ogden Theater.
Both local openers were fitting support to TAUK and had the venue filling in early with fans. The six-piece Boulder-based act Eminence Ensemble has soared to new heights in recent months with the addition of guitarist Taylor Frederick (YAMN), and the new lineup was firing on all cylinders back home after a West Coast tour. The band’s original material jumped around genres–soul, funk, blues—but the heart of EE was a deep-rooted respect for vintage prog-rock. On the contrary, Greener Grounds was quick to take things in a different, electronic direction. Driven by the synth of Jimmy Charles Dunstan Jr. and the four-to-the-floor backbeat of drummer AJ Gillman, the Denver-based dance party dove into deep trance jams for a short-lived but powerful set.
By the time the headlining TAUK finally took to the stage, the crowd was primed. The band’s instrumental sound is uniquely theirs, a polished progressive product with deep chemistry between four talented young players: Matt Jalbert (guitar), AC Carter (keys), Isaac Teel (drums), and Charlie Dolan (bass). Jalbert’s melodic and often haunting guitar work crafts the sound, but in few bands does the drummer take on such a dominant and leading role. Sporting a fitting cutoff t-shirt of the famed drumming Muppet, The Animal, Teel truly was a beast behind the kit. His relentless attack and head-scratching chops center stage stole the show.
Highlights included a sitar-laced “On Guard” on which Jalbert took the lead riff into spacey, uncharted territory, a mathy “In the Basement of the Alamo” that effortlessly jumped between six and four, and a grooving “Mindshift.” The band also threw in a few choice covers, Pink Floyd’s “Sheep” and an instrumental take of the Dropkick Murphy’s “I’m Shipping Up To Boston” that worked the St. Patty’s day crowd into a frenzy.
