They’re All Around Us: Poppy Comes to Denver

Have you had enough? Poppy’s Denver fans sure hadn’t after her concert stopped here on Monday. They lingered behind after the show to chant “One more song!” after the encore, and for good reason. The show she put on was exciting to watch, and the audience buzzed with electricity as Poppy ripped through crowd favorites like “Concrete,” “I Disagree,” and “Bloodmoney,” which was nominated for a Grammy in 2021.

Promoting her new album, Negative Spaces, the show also featured several tracks from the release. “The Cost of Giving Up,” “Crystallized,” and “New Way Out” all made appearances on the set list. The critically acclaimed album, released in November 2024, was labeled “a faithful return to her metal leanings” by Ryan Ciocco of 411Mania and received an 86/100 score from the review aggregator Metacritic.

It was definitely a return to form of sorts for the artist, who originally began as a YouTuber posting satirical sketch comedy videos in the 2010s. She then went on to become a musician, releasing her first album in 2017, the art-pop influenced Poppy.Computer and the whiplash-inducing transition from electro-pop to heavy metal seen on 2018’s Am I A Girl, before diving fully into a metal and industrial sound with I Disagree in 2020. Later albums Flux in 2021 and Zig in 2023 would see a small departure from a heavier sound, the former being alternative rock and the latter dark pop.

The show in Denver took place at the Summit Music Hall on Monday, coinciding with Saint Patricks Day. If not clad in black and gothic styles, concertgoers wore green for the holiday, or both. The show attracted a much more punk-looking crowd this time compared to last year’s stop in Denver on the Godless/Goddess Tour with PVRIS. There was quite a bit of moshing and crowd surfing at Monday’s show, and halfway through the set, during “The Center’s Falling Out,” Poppy demanded the room to divide in half and perform a wall of death.

“Left!!! Right!!!” she shouted to the crowd, who eagerly took her instructions and parted like Moses with the sea. Not only was the audience populated with more punks this time, the crowd was significantly larger, or at least seemed that way with its line stretching halfway around the block by the time doors opened at 7 p.m. Overall, the show was epic and cemented Poppy’s place as a respectable metal musician in the scene. Next, she’s off to Minneapolis and Chicago after that, and the latter show can be watched via livestream with a ticket purchased here.

Photo courtesy of social media