STS9 Lights Up The Fillmore Denver for New Year’s Run
All photographs by Jess Phillips
Over the last decade I’ve intermittently attended the STS9 New Year’s run at the Tabernacle in Atlanta. I always imagined that if I saw them in Colorado, I’d be sure to see them on their three-night Red Rocks run. Last week, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that while I was on a business trip in Denver, their New Year’s run would be hosted at Fillmore Auditorium. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take a trip down memory lane and ring in the new year with my favorite Tribe.
The night of the show it was 14 degrees outside, and I thought to myself, “Surely people will stay at home in this kind of weather.” (I’m from Florida, and there’s no chance we leave our homes if it’s under 50 degrees.) Denver showed me otherwise. As the night unfolded, it became apparent that Colorado was the band’s home away from home. They managed to pack the place from wall to wall, with no room in between. The place was buzzing with old and new fans alike, but one thing remained the same: the nostalgic feeling that we were ALL about to be taken on a musical journey that we’d not soon forget.
STS9 came out of the gates swinging by starting off the night with their classic tune “Tokyo.” From there on out, they delicately wove in and out of newer and older jams like masterful spiders of their craft. Their ability to integrate their jazzier improvisational songs like “Hubble” into drum-and-bass-styled tunes like “We’ll Meet in Our Dreams” is always impressive to witness. It keeps their sets progressive but familiar.
STS9 invited fellow Californian TOKiMONSTA to open the show.
[STS9: Tokyo > Worry No More > Wilder, Blu Mood, Grow > Kabuki, ROYGBIV > One a Day, Shock Doctrine; E: ABCees, Hubble, Water Song, We’ll Meet in Our Dreams, Hubble, Lo Swaga, Hubble, ABCees > Balancing > Click Lang Echo, Frequencies 3 > The Rabble, ReEmergence > Hidden Hand > Hidden Fist; E2: Hi-Key]
