Colorado doesn’t have anything quite like the South Park Music Festival.
The festival, in its second year, is two days full of music on multiple stages in a charming mountain town not frequented by tourists. And it’s free.
Festival organizer Matt Fecher is a champion of independent music, and here are five of his reasons not to miss this year’s festival.
Happy Bullets: “Song after song, they seem to struggle between deciding if they’d rather be Belle & Sebastian or Modest Mouse for the day,” Fecher says. “They’re bloody brilliant – by far, the best fake-British band in the Southwest. The trite moments are forgivable by their fun factor. This band should be big – and soon.”
9 p.m. Friday night at the Fairplay Hotel.
Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s: “Margot may possibly be the very best independent band in the country. Their debut album is so good that you canspin it 2,000 times and never grow tired of it. And with all that hurrah, the disc pales to their live shows. They’re touring as an eight-piece monster of a band through South Park. Be there, or wish you were. Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s are going to be the last big thing.”
11 p.m. Thursday at the Fairplay Hotel for badgeholders; 4 p.m. Saturday on Front Street Stage.
Halloween, Alaska: “They share drummer Scott King with what is undeniably one of the hottest popular jazz groups in the world right now – The Bad Plus – but Halloween, Alaska vocalist James Diers also has a voice that has an instantly endearing and smooth quality. Musically, the first thing you’ll notice is the restraint and space that each song creates. … I played their new record 10 times in a row when I received it.”
Midnight Thursday at the Fairplay Hotel for badgeholders; 5 p.m. Friday on the Front Street Stage.
Matt Boyer: “Here’s the premiere chance to catch one of Colorado’s most brilliant singer-songwriters. An all-around super player, Boyer brings the street cred to Colorado that he earned as the guitar player for too-cool-for-school band Sun Kil Moon.”
1:15 p.m. Saturday on the South Park Songwriter Stage.
Cameron McGill: “Cameron is the best singer-songwriter you’ve never heard. Well, you may have heard him play with Rachael Yamagata live and on record. What makes him good? Well, if you’re a singer, he sings better than you. If you’re a songwriter, he writes better lyrics than you. And if you’re a rock star, he’s humbler than you. He’s impossible not to like.”
8 p.m. Thursday at the Fairplay Hotel for badgeholders; 4 p.m. Friday on the South Park City Stage.
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
South Park Music Festival
INDIE ROCK AND ALT-COUNTRY|The streets of Fairplay, 85 miles southwest of Denver on U.S. 285; noon-1 a.m. Friday and Saturday|FREE|Information at southparkmusic.com.
