Beck, Cage The Elephant, Spoon – July 23rd – Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre

Beck, Cage the Elephant and Spoon brought their “Night Running Tour” to Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre on Tuesday night, delivering a psychedelic and pyrotechnic marathon of Rock and Roll.

Being a midweek show with a lineup of three headline-worthy bands, doors were open before 5 p.m. and the crowd slowly trickled in as the young Los Angeles-based band Starcrawler opened the show with a short set.

Spoon kicked off their set a little before 6:30 p.m., taking the still-assembling crowd through a tight set of the band’s most popular songs spanning their 25-year career. The band released a “best-of” album entitled Everything Hits at Once, on July 26 and they took the opportunity to play nearly every song from the new release.

By the time the band began the third song, “The Way We Get By” from 2002’s Kill the Moonlight, the crowd was beginning to find their seats and sing-along with frontman Britt Daniel, reciprocating the band’s energy. It was enough to get a shout out from Daniel, who thanked the fans on the lawn for showing up early and getting into the music.

Next, after assembling a monumental stage setup of speaker stacks, drum risers, and a hanging lighting and fog rig, Cage the Elephant took the stage. The band played a long set of songs from their five studio albums, and had the crowd on their feet, dancing and singing along while pyrotechnics and fireworks lit up the stage.

Singer Matt Shultz seemed possessed by the music, frenetically dancing and flailing on stage and leaping out into the crowd at multiple points during the set. He donned a variety of different hats and gradually undressed out of his suit during the set until all that remained was his tan-colored underwear. He finished the set in a similar rock and roll fashion — by walking to the back of the venue over the crowd and climbing up into the lighting towers on the lawn — mostly naked.

The sun had finally gone down when the opening riff to “Loser” rang out into the evening, and the crowd cheered as Beck and his band took the stage, which was paneled with mirrors and backed with a large, psychedelic video screen.

I had to admit that Fiddler’s Green felt like a strange venue choice considering all of the evening’s bands had played tours in recent years at Red Rocks, and some of Beck’s most memorable career appearances in Denver have been at the legendary venue. Beck felt the same way, telling the crowd after playing “Loser” that it “felt a little strange to not be at Red Rocks.”

Beck’s set also included hits like “Black Tambourine,” “Girl,” and “Devil’s Haircut.” At one point asking the audience’s preference for fast songs or slow songs, Beck ended up opting for an upbeat and somewhat rushed set, promising to come back and play some of his mellower music next time.

Possibly due to time constraints, the band didn’t leave the stage to signal a traditional encore, but delivered a confetti-laden finale of “Where It’s At” with members of Cage the Elephant and Starcrawler joining the band on stage to close out a fantastic evening of music.