Day 29: Denver, CO
Welcome
Yesterday we headed to the mile high city, Denver, for a show at Summit Music Hall.
My day began with a visit to the vibrant micro-district known as Dairy Block (it’s actually a building). Once a site for the processing of butter, milk, and cheese, this building is now a home to a range of retail and food options in a confusing open-plan layout. Jake described it as a ‘mega mart for millenials’. I was there for a breakfast and I found one at Huckleberry Roasters, a coffee shop that felt like it was part of a clothing store but also in a hotel lobby. I ordered a Parfait, which in this case was blueberries, honey yoghurt, and muesli, served in a plastic pottle.
A mega-mart for millenials.
The bus was parked outside our venue in central Denver. Sadly the view of the city’s surrounding landscapes mostly impeded but we could just catch a glimpse of the Rockies at the end of 19th street.
In the afternoon I headed out for a jog, heading northwest to embark on the trails that run alongside the South Platte River. It was a very handsome route that had long sections of dirt track that ran right next to the water, cutting through the brush that lined the riverbank. I’m always happy when I can find a good urban trail running experience and this one is a gem, right in the city centre.
After a while I branched off the river and headed up Cherry Creek, and was soon confronted with a very fine example of a through-truss bridge. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad has proved to be an extremely difficult structure to research, but I can tell you that it is a riveted Pratt through-truss design that carries three tracks of the BNSF Railroad, and it was probably constructed in the late 19th century, which was when a number of similar designs were constructed to replaced the wooden bridges along Cherry Creek that had been washed out by a flood.
It’s always a good day when boints are awarded. The coffers in the central boints bank are almost dry after Tristan received þ45,000 for his work at the T-Mobile store yesterday. Our phone plans had all run out after a month and needed to be topped up, and this brave man volunteered for the task. He knew exactly what trouble he was getting into but stoic remained his character as he entered that pinkly lit store.
This was the situation: somehow Jon had ended up as our account dad and we needed his pin to top up all of our individual accounts. Jon didn’t remember setting a pin and sent through all possible options, none of which worked. Tristan kept his foot down though, and remained patient while the technicians at T-Mobile repeatedly tried to execute a bypass. Finally they broke through. Somehow they hacked Jon’s pin, and on top of that gave us a discount on our next month’s plan. Congratulations, Tristan, on this colossal achievement.
As well as being a lover of a challenging interaction Tristan is also a lover of art and so a good part of his afternoon was spent at the Denver Art Museum. The light in the galleries was a bit poor so we don’t have anything to share from the collections, but there is this great shot of one of the more striking buildings on the campus. Here are a few facts about the Frederic C. Hamilton Building that I found very interesting.
Bold design
Serves as main entrance to the museum complex
Juts in many directions
Four stories
3,700 pieces of steel
None of the 20 planes is parallel or perpendicular to another
Emulates the sharp angles of the Rocky Mountains
Inspired by the wide-open faces of the people of Denver
The Frederic C. Hamilton Building.
Jon and Liz had a good wander around downtown and took an interest in the Romanesque Revival architecture of Denver’s historic Union Station, completed in 1914.
We had sold out the Summit Music Hall, and I was excited to see if we received a prize for our efforts. When it came time to load-in we all gunned it to the green room and found awaiting us a large box of biscuits decorated with various motifs from our album covers.
There were 1100 people in the room when it came time for us to play. This was another one of these thoughtfully-designed music spaces with good sight-lines, plentiful seating and standing room, acoustic treatment on the walls and roof, and a stage sizable enough to safely inflate a large fish.
I have to say that I was quite impressed with the Denver audience. They made a Tuesday show feel like a Saturday show, but not in a messy way. I met some nice folks afterwards, and I also received a large number of emails afterwards; probably a result of me sharing email address during the show and trying to goad everyone into writing me. We also got to check out some more great bootleg merch, this time in the form of homemade bracelets.
This safety man is in place while we cross the footpath for load-out.
A great night ended on a beautiful note when we got to meet Pippet, an impossibly small dog that belonged to the venue manager.
