{"id":2455710,"date":"2020-03-12T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=322533"},"modified":"2020-03-12T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T22:00:00","slug":"spafford-postpones-aspen-show-but-you-can-still-support-them-and-other-touring-artists-amid-coronavirus-cancellations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/spafford-postpones-aspen-show-but-you-can-still-support-them-and-other-touring-artists-amid-coronavirus-cancellations\/","title":{"rendered":"Spafford postpones Aspen show, but you can still support them and other touring artists amid coronavirus cancellations"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Spafford, the jam band popular in mountian towns, hs postponed its spring tour due to coronavirus disrptions. THe band had been scheduled to play Belly Up on Friday.<\/strong>
Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Spafford\u2019s Friday night show at Belly Up Aspen has been postponed due to disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic. The band, which was on a ski country tour and played Scmiggity\u2019s in Steamboat Springs on Tuesday night, announced Thursday morning they were halting their winter tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s with extremely heavy hearts that we must inform you that we will be postponing all winter tour dates due to new mass gathering mandates and restrictions issued by the government in the states of Washington, Oregon, California, and Nevada,\u201d the band wrote in a statement. \u201cWe\u2019ve had an absolutely amazing run this winter and the last thing we want is for it to stop now. Sadly, this means we also have to cancel tomorrow night\u2019s show at the Belly Up in Aspen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Belly Up will refund tickets and Spafford pledged to reschedule the 15 canceled gigs.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur sincerest apologies to our fans and the people of Aspen, Colorado specifically,\u201d the statement continues. \u201cWe look forward to playing the Belly Up as and getting back to Aspen as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Touring artists like Spafford, an Arizona-based jam band, primarily make a living based on revenue from touring gigs. This week\u2019s cancellations of tours and festivals big and small are an economic blow to touring bands (and people like roadies, managers and marketing people).<\/p>\n

Fans can still support bands by paying to download songs online or buying merchandise through band websites. The disposable income you were going to spend on a concert ticket \u2013 or that you\u2019ve had refunded from Belly Up for Spafford\u2019s concert \u2013 can go toward Spafford\u2019s online stores, which has a huge selection of Spafford gear. Spafford also has a sale going on right now on items like hoodies and yoga pants.<\/p>\n

In a post on Twitter March 6 that went viral, the DJ and producer wrote \u201cCancelled festivals and shows (because) of Coronavirus will be big financial losses for indie artists this year. Please consider buying a piece of merch to support your favorite indie act(s) and help art thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spafford is a ski town staple, making seasonal stops here at Belly Up Aspen and across mountain towns in the west. The band\u2019s coronavirus-truncated tour sent them through Winter Park, Frisco and Steamboat Springs before it ended.<\/p>\n

The band started winning over fans in Colorado soon after it formed in 2010. Drummer Nick Tkachyk recalled steadily moving beyond venues in Spafford\u2019s native Phoenix, first to Albuquerque and then to Denver, where they became regulars at the jam band hub Quixote\u2019s True Blue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe style of music we play \u2013 the more jam, rock, funk style \u2013 hits well with people in Colorado,\u201d Tkachyk said from Tucson earlier this winter as the tour launched. \u201cSo it was a natural fit. Since then we\u2019ve loved playing Colorado. The crowds always throw down, so we throw down and it becomes a big throw-down session.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chuck \u201cSpafford\u201d Johnson, the band\u2019s namesake, has a family cabin in Winter Park, where the band has set up shop regularly over the years including its \u201cCabin Jam\u201d livestream concerts on Facebook.<\/p>\n

Like a lot of jam bands with devout followings, Spafford keeps close track of its set lists and studies them before performances \u2013 making sure not to repeat recently played songs or ones they did during their previous stops at a venue. But their wildly improvisational shows are always open-ended affairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a sense of that we don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d Tkachyk said. \u201cThere is a sense of mystery. We have our set list, but somebody might play a lick in a jam from another song that\u2019s not on the list and we\u2019ll go into that. We let the spirit of the jam and the spirit of the crowd guide us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amid their jams, Tkachyk said, the band generally communicates non-verbally with music cues and the occasional look in the eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cMusical communication is the best and most pure form of communication we can utilize,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Those live shows are Spafford\u2019s calling card. But they\u2019ve been prolific with live recording releases as well, in proper albums and smaller online only drops (including a three-song audio release last week from a set at Grand Junction\u2019s Mesa Theater.)<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s most recent studio release is \u201cThe Gaff Tapes,\u201d an eclectic five-song EP released in October. It was an experiment for the band, made in their home studio in Phoenix and engineered on their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are really proud of it and we had a blast,\u201d Tkachyk said.<\/p>\n

Their previous full-length studio record, the sprawling \u201cFor Amusement Only,\u201d was released in 2018.<\/p>\n

And in December, the band released \u201cChapel Jam,\u201d a live recording from January 2017 with a curious backstory. They were touring the northeast opening for Umphrey\u2019s McGee, when a show in Rochester, New York was canceled. The band was staying in a church\u2019s mission hall, which had been converted into an Airbnb. On the unexpected night off, they set up their gear in the building\u2019s chapel \u2013 Tkachyk on his drum kit on the altar, the rest below \u2013 and played a long jam without an audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love sharing music and the fans have always been grateful,\u201d Tkachyk said of Spafford\u2019s many live releases. \u201cWe kind of carry on the Grateful Dead outlook of releasing live music. It\u2019s not necessarily our music \u2013 it belongs to everybody and the fans play as much of a role in the live performances as we do. So we want to share it as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spafford, the jam band popular in mountian towns, hs postponed its spring tour due to coronavirus disrptions. THe band had been scheduled to play Belly Up on Friday.Courtesy photo Spafford\u2019s Friday night show at Belly Up Aspen has been postponed due to disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic. The band, which was on a ski country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 10:58:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}