And, by the way, some guy who wants to be president is giving a speech or something.

The Democratic National Convention rolls through Denver this week, bringing more than 4,000 delegates, some 15,000 members of the media and a boatload of celebrities.

"It's the Sundance Film Festival for politicos," Laura Dawn, cultural director of MoveOn.org, told The New York Times last week. "It's a really intense festival atmosphere with a lot of parties."

The Times ran down the list of recording artists who will be playing in Denver this week: Kanye West, The Black Eyed Peas, Fall Out Boy, Death Cab for Cutie and Chris Daughtry (who, in a show of bipartisan pandering, is also performing the following week in St. Paul, Minn., during the Republican National Convention).

And, like the parties at Sundance, if you don't have the right laminated badge or your name's not on the right clipboard, you're not getting in to most of them.

The Black Eyed Peas are performing at a party for The Creative Coalition. Kanye West will be the draw for a party sponsored by the Recording Industry Association of America and Bono's anti-poverty campaign, One.

In contrast, the Times story said, Rage Against the Machine will give a free show at the Denver Coliseum, with 8,000 tickets being given away by lottery.

Does rock-star exposure buy votes for a candidate? Not likely.

"I wonder how many people who were going to vote for McCain are now going to vote for Obama because they know that Death Cab likes him," Nathan Willett, lead singer of the band Cold War Kids, told the Times. "A lot of these bands are preaching to the choir."

But the choir needs motivating, and rocking out to a favorite band accomplishes that.

The downside for Democrats is that Republicans can spin their usual "Democrats are kowtowing to the Hollywood liberal elite" lines. But they don't make such complaints when John McCain hosts "Saturday Night Live" or shows up on Leno (as he was scheduled to do last night).

Such complaints ring hollow from the party of Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Fred Thompson. Maybe the Republicans, who will be hanging out with the Osmond Brothers at a GOP fund-raiser in Missouri next month, are just jealous they can't rock out with some cool bands.

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SEAN P. MEANS also writes the Culture Vulture in daily blog form at blogs.sltrib.com/vulture. Send tips, contributions and comments to vulture@sltrib.com.