Jim & Mary, Bob & Byron, and Kala & I went to the 'I'm With Her' concert in Denver with my urging. We bought VIP tickets and sat in the orchestra center row 7 for the show. As noted before, the Paramount is gorgeous and the sound is superior. Good thing, as these women are great artists and the vocals were among the best I've ever heard ~ their accompaniment was madly skilled strings across the board.
Our VIP experience included a row 1 close up 3 song set with audience Q&A before the show and a signed poster and lanyard badge. We arrived right on time and the pre-show was cool. These are spectacular artists who are completely down to earth... honest and engaged the entire intimate pre-event. 'I'm With Her' are Sara Watkins (fiddle, uke, vocals), Aoife O'Donovan (guitar, vocals), and Sara Jarosz (guitar, octavia, mandolin, banjo, vocals). All are strong alt-bluegrass and Americana/Roots solo artists in their own rights and formed this very special supergroup in 2014.
We exited the theater after the pre-show, walked in the rebuilt 16th St mall, and had really good Italian dinners nearby at Panzini (thx Jim). Our timing was again perfect (always easier with assigned seats) as with VIP we skipped the line and headed right into the theater; we arrived to our seats with 1 minute to spare before Jon Muq took the stage. Jon had a sweet voice and seemingly relevant songs but he was hard to hear, especially on dialogue. I was worried sound was going to be rough in row 7 but it was only odd on his set. Jon's a Ugandan immigrant who headed to Austin, TX.
We got up and walked around a bit after Muq; our seats were mightily cramped both shoulder width wise as well as (no) legroom wise. The front 28 rows at the Paramount were temporary reserved seating for 'I'm With Her,' often they are SRO mosh pit... the temporary nature allowed a bad install for our seats. This was the only downside to the outing. Again, 'I'm With Her' harmonies, blends, and answers are just spectacular: Watkins' soprano rocks big; O'Donovan's folk builds great structure for the tunes; Jarosz's round tone is beautiful. I have both of the albums and knew all the songs ~ hard to imagine, but they were just as good, maybe better, live. One of the best shows ever.
The team separated on departure but the COS-bound team got the Paramount marquis selfie at the end.
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