Rocky Mountain News - Music

Pick the put-down, and Coldplay's been on the receiving end. And yet they've sold 40 million albums and routinely pack arenas.

The FrayUP is coming back to play a small gig, but getting tickets won't be easy. The June 6 date at the Gothic Theatre will make tickets available only to fans who preorder the deluxe version of the band's new album, The Fray, through TheFray.net. They'll be given a code that offers a chance (but no guarantee) to buy two of the $27.50 tickets in a presale Dec. 3-5. If it doesn't sell out, the rest of the tickets would go on sale to the general public at some point.

A digital film of Tom Tilton and the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble performing Rejoicing the Roots will have its premiere Monday and Tuesday at the Esquire Theatre.

Jurgen de Lemos, the Colorado Symphony's longtime principal cellist, will retire from the orchestra at the end of this season. His last solo with the orchestra will be tonight.

Reviews of Christmas on Mars by The Flaming Lips, Budokan! by Cheap Trick and At Kilburn 1977 by The Who.

Celine Dion's Taking Chances World Tour has been booked at the Pepsi Center for nearly a year - and now fans have to wait three more months.

Country songwriter Rodney Crowell's latest album, "Sex & Gasoline," takes a look at the pressures that women face in society today, inspired by struggles he's seen in his family.

Pepper heads the list of new-concert announcements defying the year-end slowdown.

Tenor saxophonist Hadley Caliman performs at Dazzle.

If you still have the CMAs Tivo-ed from last year, you can probably delete what recorded Wednesday night. The winner's circle was nearly all reruns.

On stage at the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night Madonna drove an antique car across the stage, played guitar in a Slash-like top hat, boxers sparred in a quickly constructed boxing ring, dancers appeared out of the floor, Britney Spears made a cameo via video, break-dancers performed on special rising stages, and Madonna vigorously jumped rope throughout an entire song – and that was just the first 20 minutes.

Madonna made her first appearance in Denver on Tuesday night as part of her Sticky & Sweet tour to promote her new album, Hard Candy.

Pianist Christopher O'Riley talks about his use of late singer/singwriter Elliott Smith's music.

Jack Lemmon has been appointed executive director of Colorado Ballet

Nov. 9, 1938. A horrifying, unforgettable day the Germans called Kristallnacht - Night of Crystal. But the world would remember with a more damning description.

In a year of politics and war, the Chicago-based punk band Rise Against, appearing at the Fillmore for two nights starting Wednesday, had a lot of topics to write about for its newest album, Appeal to Reason.

Madonna's first exposure to a global audience came in 1985 at Live Aid, bookended with an appearance at Live 8 nearly 20 years later.

A look at some of Madonna's milestone tours:

Whether it's his Byrds classics, his free songs on the Internet or his appearance in the Tom Petty documentary, Roger McGuinn is still active and respected after a 40-year-career.

Boulder rappers 3OH!3 sold out their two recent Gothic Theatre gigs, so they put up an Ogden Theatre show for January, and it sold out right away.