Pentagram, Radio Moscow and Kings Destroy West Coast Tour, Pt. 14: Mower
02.28.14 — 5:28PM Mountain — Friday — Summit Music Hall, Denver, CO
“In a moment, the results of that trial…” — Dragnet
And so it was that Kings Destroy came out of the desert and into the mountains, to the city of Denver, where weed is legal and horseheads are worshiped as pagan gods. Go Broncos. The drive to get to the Summit Music Hall wasn’t bad. All of a sudden, the land was doing stuff. It was protruding rocks or rising a couple thousand feet, rolling with dust and brush or twisting around a hillside. I was surprised how much of the road from New Mexico into Colorado was still high desert. My mental image of this place is all mountains, but in the south of the state, there’s more to it than that. Had I given any real thought to it, I probably would’ve expected the gradual shift that happened, but
well, we rolled into that EconoLodge at three and out again a little after eight, so frankly I wasn’t giving much of anything “real thought.”
I did manage to sleep for about half an hour in the van, and that coupled with the three-plus hours last night, a semi-reckless amount of caffeine these last several days and a protein bar seems to have been enough to keep me upright, at least so far. I tend to get sick when I travel, so I prefer to eat as little as humanly possible on the road to avoid stomach issues. I’d rather be hungry. While the middle window of the van was being fixed this afternoon shortly after we hit Denver, some of the guys went into a little Mexican restaurant and had some tacos, and I thought about it, but the place had one of those twirling rotisseries of meat and to me, that’s a sign to look elsewhere. You have to find these little clues. I’ve got gum and can always pick something up later if I feel like it.
The van window replacement turned out to be a jack. It was too good to be true. One shop in the city of Denver 
claimed to have the second panel for the back window as well as the one for the middle, and then we got there after driving all day from Albuquerque and dude was like, “Yeah bros there’s only one pane of glass so eat it. You want it?” Of course. Not a bad move for a business owner to be like, “Oh, you’re just passing through town and are pressed for time and won’t be back? Yeah, I’ve got those two things you want” and then only have one of them and know that you don’t really have any choice but to take it anyway. So long as you’re willing to be a piece of shit, there’s good money to be made fucking people over. We’ll reinforce the back “window” with more cardboard and tape and be fine. At least the one got done.
Summit Music Hall has a photo pit, which is a first for 
the places we’ve been, and the room is sizable. Roughly DNA Lounge-proportioned, but maybe taller and with more balcony space. Seems to be they do rock shows here. The back bar area sections off and they do smaller shows there as well. Brilliant. Spirit Caravan are coming through and playing here, though I’m not sure in which of the two rooms. I’ve seen posters for that tour in a few different places by now. I guess maybe it’s a bit of a circuit for venues willing to put on these kinds of shows. Fair enough. It’s not exactly intimate, but I’ve caught shows in far worse spots than this. This week.
