I made my way to Civic Center Park, near the state capitol building in Denver, around midday on Tuesday, hoping to find signs of dissident life to add a bit of hot blood to what had been so far a rather anemic Democratic National Convention. It was the morning after a confrontation between police and demonstrators marching on the U.S. Mint on Colfax Avenue. That night ended with arrests and some pepper spraying of marchers. When my brother, Sean, and I arrived at the park on a burnished and swel
in a bottlenecked and barricaded stretch of street, 50 members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, dressed in full uniform, many displaying an impressive array of service medals, stared down an overwhelming deployment of police on foot, horseback and perched atop the raised platforms of massive SWAT vehicles. With guns, truncheons and tear gas pointed at them, one of the veterans took a microphone and told the police, "We don't want to hurt you and you don't want to hurt us."
That's the rumor, anyway, and I'm trying to confirm it right now. But it makes sense: the Crows' new album, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, dropped last week; they've been in town all this week gigging (a few nights ago for the Yahoo! Live series, and tomorrow at the Apple Store at the Grove); and at The Hotel Cafe's schedule on their website, tonight's listing features The Nightwatchmen (Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Merello's project) along with "Special Guests TBA!" Now, I know my
