Venue of the Month-Lions Lair

by Ryan Edwards

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There are so many famous venues in the Denver area.  We’ve heard of them all:  The Bluebird, The Fillmore, and the Ogden in Denver, the Fox in Boulder, or the Aggie in Fort Collins, and all of these venues we have either been to or have heard of them. But this article is not about these places. It’s about the venues that don’t expect the recognition, but still support local music, the places that we are oblivious to as we drive down the street, but have meant to visit a hundred times.

The Lions Lair on Colfax is no exception to these rules. It might be the smallest venue in Denver, with a capacity to maybe hold 75 people. Once I walked in and turned the corner I had pretty much seen the entire place; therefore, my first impressions weren’t much. But I soon realized that what Lions Lair lacks in size, it makes up for in intimacy. A place where the stage is so close, I didn’t feel as though I was watching live music – I felt as though I was a part of it. “Overall that’s a cool thing,” said Steve Melton, lead singer of The Northern Way, talking about the size of Lions Lair.

Lions Lair opened in the sixties as a Jazz club known as the Playboy Club in downtown Denver, but the last 15 years it’s been owned and operated by Tony Meggitt and Doug Kauffman. Locally known as a small venue serving up Punk and Alternative/Rock, it has become a Denver estate where local musicians and music lovers come to mingle. “I hate the term “dive,” cause it’s not, it’s a cool little place,” Melton said.

To get a sense of what local musicians think of the venue, I created a scale from one to 10 rating the stage, the audience, the staff, the drink specials, and the overall venue. Steve Melton of The Northern Way gave the stage an eight, because as a band they had to adjust to play on a smaller stage. The audience was an eight. “It was a medium-size crowd, wound up good, those are fun,” Melton said. The staff he gave a 10, because they were polite and helped with set-up. The drink specials he gave a 10, because they weren’t over-priced. Overall, Steve gave Lions Lair a nine out of 10.

Next I interviewed the local Pop/Punk band Pikes, a group that has only been together for six months and has performed at Lions Lair multiple times. The group gave the stage a seven, but like the sound of the stage and didn’t mind the size. The audience was given a seven or eight, depending on the night. The staff they gave a 10, and the drink specials, a seven. Overall, they gave the venue an eight out of 10. “Lions Lair is to Denver as the Double Down is to Vegas, and it’s venues like these that fuel the local music community,” said Sean, lead vocalist and guitarist of Pikes.

Lions Lair is located at 2022 East Colfax Avenue, Denver, Colo. 80206-1304
(303) 320-9200

FaceBook.com/PikesBand

Pikes.BandCamp.com

Tags: Lions Lair Denver

Category: The Post