Tracksuit Wedding

It’s not every day a band comes along that’s as comfortable playing big local rooms as it is in the lineup of national festivals. Tracksuit Wedding, Denver’s premier vintage rock/funk/blues powerhouse, makes both look easy.

Tracksuit Wedding is the brainchild of keyboardist Libby Anschutz and lead singer Ali Frankfurt. Conceived in 2013, the band brings together seasoned players from all over the Denver scene, celebrating the universal truth that a band’s primary objective is to get a groove going. After years of mixing funk, soul and blues, Tracksuit Wedding made the decision to ground its sound in its rock roots, adding multi-instrumentalist and former Fire In The Asylum bassist Roqui Lluma to the mix.

Lluma brings a diverse set of influences – from classical, jazz, Latin and rock – to her new role in Tracksuit Wedding. Her unique style and experience playing all over the U.S. and Latin America was the kick in the pants the band needed to solidify its powerful musical personality.

“She has a powerful presence on stage,” says Anschutz. “She’s really raising the bar for Tracksuit Wedding’s live experience.”

With Lluma in tow, Tracksuit Wedding has become an even greater force in Colorado music. And that comes from experience. The members of Tracksuit Wedding are familiar faces at Colorado venues, both as fans of local, live music and as hard-working musicians. Frankfurt is a veteran of the scene, having fronted the gritty punk / hard rock group The Blackouts for many years. It may seem like an odd move from the heavy side of the spectrum to the groove-based, party atmosphere of Tracksuit Wedding, but for Frankfurt, the only thing that matters is the music.

“It’s definitely been an evolution,” says Frankfurt. “That’s what defines us, the melding of styles.”

That combination of influences and sounds is what makes Tracksuit Wedding stand out. The band’s original tunes are at once familiar and fresh, the perfect combination of the good old days of loose, low-fi, bluesy rock and the well-honed professionalism of seasoned musicians.

“Over the years of playing together we have experimented with lots of added instrumentation and backup vocals,” says Anschutz. “For 2017 we have stripped some of that away to simplify our sound and write energizing rock songs that people will want to move to. This is the sound we’ve been searching for.”