From a performance standpoint, day two of the second annual Mile High Music Festival was a success.
The festival offered another solid slate of local and national acts on five stages, ranging from dance- oriented reggae and hip-hop to pop and blues. The artists stepped up their performances, delivering some of their tightest and loudest to date.
From an energy and attendance standpoint, however, the festival failed to live up to the kinetic atmosphere created last year by acts including Tom Petty, Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer.
Despite a searing set from Saturday headliners Tool, Mile High leaned so heavily on jam-friendly acts that it felt like an excuse for fans of Widespread Panic (the late-night headliner both nights) to cavort in the sun.
Boulder-bred hip-hop duo 3OH!3 provided perhaps the most electric show Sunday, the fans in a packed tent undulating and throwing the band’s signature hand signs throughout songs like “Starstrukk.” With Chain Gang of 1974 principal Kamtin Mohager on bass and Young Coyotes’ Adam Halferty on drums, it was a validation of the Front Range music scene.
Unfortunately, it didn’t define the festival. Thievery Corporation’s main stage performance barely drew enough people to justify its chest-rattling volume and bass, which interfered with Hasidic Jewish reggae rapper Matisyahu’s tent set not far away.
Robert Randolph and the Family Band’s showing at the venue’s smallest stage was sparsely attended, as was a later appearance there by frat boy-approved Sublime clone Pepper. A relatively packed Gov’t Mule show might have had more to do with the impending (and loud) Widespread Panic show at the stage later in the night than Warren Haynes’ jammy, guitar-driven appeal.
The Fray, the biggest-selling band in Colorado history, rounded out the local love with a main stage set that also failed to draw the kind of numbers that would justify the festival’s geographic setup.
However, frontman Isaac Slade is maturing into a satisfyingly confident frontman, eschewing the piano more often than not and striking Bono-esque, splay-legged poses during songs.
It was good for Fray fans that the field wasn’t packed. Video screens that showed the band to people far away were riddled with embarrassing glitches the first four songs.
It was another example of a fairly by-the-book, large-scale festival that could have drawn far more people but at least provided an impressive set of performances.
