THC Clouds Over Denver…
Bongzilla, Black Cobra, Lo-Pan, ATG Photo Essay

All photos & Text by Alvino Salcedo

Being from Denver, the automatic question us lucky natives of this great state receive immediately usually consists of: “is there a giant cloud of weed smoke surrounding the city all the time?” Well, when this line up came to Denver, you bet your ass it did.

The night kicked off with Against the Grain hailing from the Motor City. The blend of Motörhead worship with their own mix of heavier stoner doom had the attention of the room all on them. ATG were welcomed with open arms by all the long haired hessians throwing up their gratuitous metal horns.

The most surprising set of the night for me came next from the almighty Lo-Pan. I’ve dabbled lightly in them, but while watching them set up on stage with the drums upfront and the singer behind,​​ I knew I was in for something. With the first note, I was hooked. It was loud, it was aggressive, it was well put together and overall left me wanting more, like the kid next to me who desperately wanted another hit of his vape pen but ran out of batteries. Needless to say, I am now a big fan of Lo-Pan and their brand of stoner doom.

ATG and Lo-Pan created a great atmosphere and had everyone in the room ready for Black Cobra.

The two-piece crept from the depths of San Francisco to Denver and destroyed everyone in the room. The full stack guitar setup had the stage shaking and the younger kids in the crowd pushing each other around the whole set. The fuzzy tone mixed with the high reverb vocals took you to another dimension even without needing the assistance of your local dispensary. At the moment, I was floating around in space in some unknown territory, then abruptly brought back to standing on the side of the stage from the cheers of the crowd at the end of their set. You couldn’t have asked for a better support to what was about to ensue.

The whole night, the stage lights were set to an ominous blood red color. It wasn’t until Bongzilla took the stage that the lights were changed to a more appropriate color…you guessed it, green. The cloud of smoke surrounded everything like the fog from that crappy movie The Mist. Welp, the music didn’t even have to start for every pipe, joint and vape pen in the room to be armed for battle and for this cloud to take over the Marquis. From the incessant head banging from those same hessians in the front row to the joints being passed to singer, Mike, Bongzilla crushed Denver like a fresh nugget of the finest legal weed in a grinder. The classic stoner doom outfit had people overall enjoying themselves and tied the entire night together.

In its entirety, if you can get a spliff of this tour when it comes to your town, don’t pass it up!