Nick Urata hears dead people. Or at least he did once at the famously haunted Stanley Hotel in Estes Park after he and his band DeVotchKa wrapped up their annual Halloween gala a couple years ago.
“I finally had my own ghost experience there, which was really exciting for me. I mean, at the time, it was terrifying, but I’d never had one in my entire not-so-young life,” the 57-year-old vocalist and guitarist admits. “I was, of course, a skeptic like everybody else, but it’s for real.”
Retracing his steps that evening, Urata describes a late night that ended with an afterparty at the Stanley’s whiskey bar. Before he made it back to his room across the property inside the main building, he and some friends decided to make a quick stop at the ballroom, where the Denver band had been performing during their multi-night residency.
“I had my own stash of wine in the dressing room and a key to the ballroom,” he says. “So I went in.”
That’s when Paul, the undead groundskeeper who’s said to still watch over the hall, made sure Urata didn’t spend too much time down there after hours.
“I was fishing around in my stuff and heard someone walking on stage, then someone started stamping on the stage, like angrily stamping,” Urata says. “It took me a second to realize there’s nobody in the ballroom and my friends are in my field of vision, so there’s nobody on stage right now.
“Needless to say that was the fastest exit in my history. I was like, ‘We got to go,’” he continues. “I’ve always been fascinated by the paranormal, but when it actually happens, you really go into a flight-or-fight mode. Your feet just start moving without you.”
‘We thought they were going to kick us out’
DeVotchKa still find themselves returning each Halloween, almost as if the hotel that inspired Stephen King’s 1977 horror thriller The Shining cast some type of spell over the Front Range folk-rock quartet. Now Urata, Tom Hagerman (violin, accordion, piano and Melodica), Jeanie Schroder (upright bass, flute and vocals) and Shawn King (drums, trumpet, accordion and organ) feel like eternal members of its new house band.
“Every year, we thought they were going to kick us out and never have us back,” Urata says. “But they keep asking us back.”
The long-running group, which formed in 1997 and broke through after their soundtrack for the 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine received a Grammy nod, returns to The Stanley for a three-night costume ball, beginning Halloween night and wrapping up Nov. 2. The SlaVic Sisters Macabre Circus Sideshow is also part of the weekend festivities.
It’s the sixth year running that DeVotchKa will serve as ringleaders of the sordid soirée, but Halloween shows are nothing new for the band. They made it a yearly tradition to headline the Boulder Theater for a decade before the Stanley opportunity presented itself.
“Basically, we were homeless for Halloween,” Urata says. “The Stanley found out about it and suggested we do a show at the ballroom there.”
Macabre masquerade
The costume ball is much more than a concert — it’s a macabre masquerade with magic and fortune-telling, death-defying aerialists and belly dancers. Think of it as a new-age, no-holds-barred vaudeville. After all, DeVotchKa, which is taken from the Russian word for “girl,” cut their teeth as a backing band for burlesque acts such as Dita Von Teese.
“When you go to The Stanley, it’s like stepping back in time,” Urata says. “It’s hard not to get enveloped in the history of the place.”
Of course, it’s the paranormal side of this history that attracts most guests to the real-life version of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining.
The hotel offers daily ghost tours that shine a light on the spectral side of the 115-year-old mountain retreat, including inside the current ballroom. Flora Stanley, the wife of the hotelier who built the Estes Park landmark, allegedly still takes the stage there to rehearse her piano.
The ballroom had been built as a practice space for her, though she only publicly performed once before succumbing to crippling stage fright. Luckily, she hasn’t stopped anyone else from bringing the ballroom to life with music.
“That’s the part I love about it,” Urata says of the storied hotel’s connection to the spirit world. “When you get there, you can forget about your normal life for a few days.”
ON THE BILL: DeVotchKa with SlaVic Sisters Macabre Circus Sideshow. 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 31; Friday, Nov. 1; Saturday, Nov. 2. Stanley Hotel, 33 E. Wonderview Ave., Estes Park. $70