Bellying up to the BarackBar

Still haven’t managed to wrangle yourself a floor pass for the Pepsi Center? Then the next best place for celebrity spotting is turning out to be Jesse Morreale’s Rockbar, renamed Barackbar for the festivities. (It’s located at 3015 East Colfax Avenue, on the ground floor of the All-Inn Hotel). Last…

Live Blog: Tent State University Music Festival to End the War

UPDATES BELOW: With photos from Rage and the Flobots. Oh yeah, and the cops have the place surrounded. It’s just after 11 a.m. and things are just getting underway at the Denver Coliseum. State Radio just took the stage and is in the midst of playing an energetic set in…

Shepard Fairey’s Manifest Hope camps out at Andenken Gallery

A lot’s been said, here and everywhere, about Democratic National Convention protests, parties and politics. But in the meantime, who’s minding the art? Never mind the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs’s Dialog:City offerings that have been unfolding around town since Monday, or the dozens of DNC-inspired shows at local galleries:…

All over but the attention-getting

Vote Satan-Angel. Once Clinton left the Pepsi Center stage, Jin Ho Kang and Yoougsook Kang, a pair of reverends from Aurora, delivered the closing prayer and the proceedings were promptly gaveled to a close for the night — at which point the band launched into Sly & the Family Stone’s…

Protesters to delegates: “Broncos suck!”

Our man on the scene — OK, he stumbled on the scene on his way to get a beer — reports that a large group of delegates just ambled past the protesers’ cage, where exactly four activists were holding things down. Their message to the passing delegates (none of whom,…

Hillary’s turn on the mic

Big mother. At last, the night’s big moment: Hillary Clinton’s unity speech, which was meant to convince supporters thinking about bailing to John McCain to throw their support behind Barack Obama despite the Democratic candidates’ bitter primary battle. The man in front of me, from the Connecticut delegation, was clearly…

The sign squad

Signs of the times. After a roof-raising speech by Montana governor Brian Schweitzer, whose charm and effectiveness undoubtedly reenforced his reputation as a rising Democratic star, the Pepsi Center’s lights dimmed for a Hillary Clinton tribute video — an odd mix of elements that featured two clips from Saturday Night…

Breaking out of the pack

My spot. It took me part of former Virginia governor Mark Warner’s keynote speech, all of the talk by Ohio governor Ted Strickland and the opening section of the address by Massachusett’s governor Deval Patrick to reach the opposite side of the Pepsi Center from where I started — directly…

Media: “This is boring!”

That blur in the middle of the screen is Katie Couric. As those of us in the (barely) moving mosh pit inched our way around the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night, we passed by broadcast platforms populated by network heavyweights. My photos of the CNN crew — Wolf Blitzer included…

The DNC floor scrum

Welcome to the Thunderdome, bitch. When I hit the Pepsi Center floor, former Virgnia governor Mark Warner was delivering the Democratic National Convention keynote address — not that I or anyone else around me registered one word of it. There were far too many bodies in a too-small space, and…

DNC press row

The press minions tapping away. Once I finally made it into the Pepsi Center on Tuesday evening, I was directed toward section 106 — press row. The area has a couple of significant advantages over other spots in the arena. For one thing, it has power — the electrical kind,…

The longest three-minute bus ride in history

The buses arrive — at last. When it became clear that many of the people gathered outside the Pepsi Center on Tuesday evening might not make it inside in time for Hillary Clinton’s big speech, Democratic National Convention personnel decided to allow anyone present who wasn’t carrying oversized media equipment…

Limelight shines on Denver pedicabs

Steve Meyer. Anyone who’s moseyed around downtown the past few days has surely noticed Denver’s turned into a spoke-and-handlebar town. Not only are the Freewheelin free bikes turning the streets into a sea of green, but Denver’s many pedicabs are out in force day and night. And in the heat…

Update: Cops trying to search anarchist headquarters

At about 12:30 p.m. today, police officers showed up at the UnConventional Action Convergence Center near 44th Avenue and Brighton Street, a space the anarchist group has rented as a staging ground for its Democratic National Convention protest activities that’s approximately a hundred yards from the Denver Colisieum, where Rage…

Wanna get into ritzy DNC parties? Be paparazzi

Looking to embarrass celebs? Come right in. Turns out all you have to do to get into the glitziest parties in town is to be one of the sleaziest folks around. Flush with democratic fervor, a bunch of us attempted to exercise our God-given right to get into parties we…

The Daily Show‘s John Oliver on the downside of equality

“When we pose, pretend like you’re my best friend.” In the midst of the ridiculous line to the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night, I found myself standing alongside none other than British-born comedian John Oliver, a correspondent for The Daily Show With Jon Stewart who I’d just enjoyed at the…