wordplay: Orangepeelmoses.com

images: Jonathan Shoup

pictured: Flobots

            Dick wasn’t exaggerating size after all.  Surprise, surprise.  Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, site of the inaugural Mile High Music Festival (bankrolled by SanDisk), is ginormous.  Five mostly animal-themed stages were spread out over what seemed like several football fields worth of grass.  Audio bleed between them was successfully averted.  Vendor booths (including Guitar Hero and Conscious Alliance), Zero Hero greening stations, a misting tent, Burning Man art installations—quickly becoming a staple on the festival circuit—and more lined the perimeter and occasionally dotted the middle.  Household name headliners like Tom Petty, Dave Matthews, John Mayer, The Black Crowes and Steve Winwood, along with hometown heroes Rose Hill Drive, Leftover Salmon, Meese, The Railbenders, OneRepublic and recent national breakouts Flobots drew nearly a hundred thousand people to Commerce City over the course of two days.  Chuck Morris’s brainchild has officially put Denver on the festival map.  Attendance figures of that magnitude are easily on par with Bonnaroo or Coachella.  Mile High highlights from Day 2 included flamenco masterminds Rodrigo y Gabriela (melodic nods to 6-string legends Hendrix, Metallica and Zeppelin were guaranteed crowd pleasers), The Roots (few tuba players could give theirs a run for his money) and Denver’s own soon-to-be globe-trotting Flobots (polar opposite covers included The Turtles “Happy Together” and Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name”), who couldn’t thank their old stomping grounds enough for assisting their ascent.  Shout outs to our new staff shutterbug Jonathan Shoup, Sci-Fidelity intern Leanne O’Toole and The Kaivalya hoopers for keeping my pale @$$ company for the four hours I was able to withstand the heat (thanks largely to my trusty black umbrella). 

            Thanks, Dick, for facilitating a Mile High milestone.                              

MileHighMusicFestival.com