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Friday: VNV Nation at the Stanley Hotel
Apr. 23rd, 2024 08:07 amSo, the last time VNV Nation toured the US, in late 2023, Ronan had some sort of allergic reaction (to food? I think? Something that came with anaphylaxis) and they had to cancel two dates, including the Denver one. For this second leg of the tour, they did reschedule in Denver... but they were also doing two shows in Estes Park at the Stanley Hotel. These shows had a unique (non-tour) setlist, and were just sort of their own thing.
So if we were gonna pay for tickets, we decided fuck it, we'll drive to Estes Park.
There was no way I could make it there on the Saturday night: it was a class close day at work, and so there was zero chance I could leave before the 6:00 start time, and Estes Park is roughly an hour and a half away. So Friday it was. I couldn't leave *early* on Friday, but it was still my early-ish day, to preempt any overtime for the late Saturday. It'd be cutting it close, but as long as we left straight from my office and made do with snacks in the car, we'd probably only be a few minutes late.
Then the weather reports came in. Snow! Mostly in the mountains! Up to 6" between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. (Thursday was nice, Sunday would again be nice, but Friday and Saturday specifically suck!) Dammit! Welp, gotta go for it.
Turned out the roads were... surprisingly fine? There were a couple bands of moderately-heavy snow, but almost nothing had stuck yet, and once we got into the mountains (which were supposed to be the worse areas) it had either snowed lightly or in some patches not at all.
On the way up we did get to see a group of three elk, as well as one turkey.
Alex took this picture of the Stanley. (I took one as we were driving up, but his is better!)
My best show picture.
( Nine pictures and concert experience below the cut: )
Each night they did a photo with the audience at the end, kind of going for that 1920s party photo from The Shining vibe. I am in this picture but I look as miserable as I felt, lol.
So if we were gonna pay for tickets, we decided fuck it, we'll drive to Estes Park.
There was no way I could make it there on the Saturday night: it was a class close day at work, and so there was zero chance I could leave before the 6:00 start time, and Estes Park is roughly an hour and a half away. So Friday it was. I couldn't leave *early* on Friday, but it was still my early-ish day, to preempt any overtime for the late Saturday. It'd be cutting it close, but as long as we left straight from my office and made do with snacks in the car, we'd probably only be a few minutes late.
Then the weather reports came in. Snow! Mostly in the mountains! Up to 6" between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. (Thursday was nice, Sunday would again be nice, but Friday and Saturday specifically suck!) Dammit! Welp, gotta go for it.
Turned out the roads were... surprisingly fine? There were a couple bands of moderately-heavy snow, but almost nothing had stuck yet, and once we got into the mountains (which were supposed to be the worse areas) it had either snowed lightly or in some patches not at all.
On the way up we did get to see a group of three elk, as well as one turkey.
Alex took this picture of the Stanley. (I took one as we were driving up, but his is better!)
My best show picture.
( Nine pictures and concert experience below the cut: )
Each night they did a photo with the audience at the end, kind of going for that 1920s party photo from The Shining vibe. I am in this picture but I look as miserable as I felt, lol.
