| Elana Rogers a musical survivor | ||||||
Elana Rogers has had a bumpy road to headlining area club shows with a full band. Before recording her first EP, she survived a bout with cancer and a life-threatening car wreck. Both events inspired her to pursue her music more passionately, rather than retreat, she said. After surviving cancer treatment at the age of 19, she lost her inhibitions and stage fright, she said. "It completely opened my eyes and made me really want to play the stuff," she said. "I didn't care what people thought anymore." The accident occurred nearly two years ago, after Rogers moved from Dallas to Denver. Paramedics used the Jaws of Life to extract her from her car after crashing on Hoosier Pass. "I thought, 'I've got to get in the studio immediately,'" she said. After recording an EP to solid local reviews, she decided to take the full band with her for all her shows. She said the band sounded more like what she heard in her head than she did playing solo with an acoustic guitar. Rogers plays country-tinged rock that is influenced by Abra Moore and Jeff Buckley, and her lyrics are autobiographical, she said. "It's a really cool progression that my music is taking in different paths," she said. One path is toward Thursday's headlining set at Arvada's D-Note. She lined up multi-instrumental singer-songwriter Ben Long and Rider Beware, a mainly acoustic rock band, to open the show. Rider Beware arose last year out of the ashes of Blind Harvest. The show starts at 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 26, at the D-Note, 7519 Grandview Ave., Arvada. Rogers is also playing at the newly refurbished Oriental Theater in northwest Denver on Friday, Feb. 3. For more information on Rogers and the shows, visit www.elanarogers.com. | ||||||
