When talking about the freshly announced lineup for this summer’s third annual Mile High Music Festival — built on the foundation of headliners Jack Johnson and the Dave Matthews Band — promoter Chuck Morris goes straight to baseball metaphors.
“This year is going to be a home run,” Morris said earlier this week from his offices in the Santa Fe Arts District, noting that tickets for the Aug. 15 and 16 fest go on sale Saturday morning.
“No matter how hard you try, sometimes you get lucky and things fit in and acts are available. Sometimes they aren’t. You’re never going to hit a home run every year. Even the big festivals, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, they’ve had off years.”
When Morris talks about off years, he’s referring to last summer, the second year of his young festival, when headliners the Fray and Tool (and the supporting bill) failed to meet expectations. That year, he sold about 65,000 tickets, while the first year moved more than 90,000 tickets on the strength of a Dave Matthews Band/Tom Petty double bill.
Expectations for this year are off the charts, especially since the headliners fit so neatly into the wheelhouse of the festival’s primary sponsor, Clear Channel-owned radio station KBCO.
“With Jack and Dave, it doesn’t get bigger than that in Colorado,” Morris said. “They’re the two staples of KBCO — certainly in their top five. One of these days we’ll be like Austin City Limits (Festival) and Coachella (Festival), and we’ll have a sellout. That might even be this year.”
Here are five questions with Morris on his Mile High lineup. He offers some advice on ticket buying and addresses some of the early criticisms of the festival.
Q: You’re selling some early-bird tickets at a discount — first at $150 and then $175 for two-day passes before they go up to $200. Those prices include all the fees and taxes, but how many of the early-bird tickets will you sell?
A: I can’t say, but it’s not 50 tickets. It’s a limited amount. And I will suggest that people get online early to get them. Last year’s two-day price was $193 after fees and taxes, so we’re giving people the opportunity to save a lot of money here.
Q: You’ve already been criticized for not selling one-day festival passes this year. Why will you only sell two- day passes when they go on sale Saturday morning?
A: We feel like, with the price reduction, that it’s down to $150, it’s a huge discount. The lineup is also so solid. There’s a pattern to it. If you love Dave, you likely love Jack. We sold a lot of two-day tickets through the years. I’m not saying we won’t sell one- day tickets, but for now, this is what we’re doing.
Q: What do you love about Jack and Dave?
A: Dave Matthews is a warhorse on the road. He hasn’t been here in two years. That’s a lifetime for Dave Matthews fans. It was tremendous in terms of e-mails to us and phone calls, the interest of “When is Dave coming back?”
I love Dave. We’ve been around him since the very beginning. Don Strasburg turned me on to him when he played the Fox Theatre a long time ago. That summer, the summer of ’91 before his RCA hit record, I put him at Red Rocks in front of Big Head Todd and Los Lobos — gave them $2,500, which was barely enough for the band to fly out from Charlottesville. It was one of those moments, like seeing U2 at the Rainbow (Music Hall), where 800-900 kids were singing along with a really obscure band and the rest of the people were blown away.
And with Jack, when we first started Chuck Morris Presents/Bill Graham Presents, I hired Don Strasburg, and he was telling me about this kid from Hawaii. He said he was great, and he wanted to do a tour of the mountains with him. Don is like some people, where eight out of 10 times he can be wrong. But when he’s right, boy is he right. We did that Colorado tour with Jack, and the rest is history. We did 2008 at Red Rocks, and that sold out in about 30 seconds. He blew my mind again.
Q: What do you have to say about the criticism that a festival shouldn’t be bringing back its first-year headliner in only its third year?
A: Bringing (Dave) back in the third year is one way to spin it, but he hasn’t been here in two years. It’s ridiculous. This is a guy who plays incessantly. For him to not be here in two years, it’s a lifetime for his fans. That kind of criticism is shortsighted and wrong.
Q: Can you tell us why it means so much for the festival’s draw that both Jack and Dave haven’t played here since the summer of 2008 — and did you all keep them away from Colorado in ’09 intentionally so you could then bring them back for this big play in ’10?
A: It’s a big deal because those acts, when they stay away for one or two years, people are dying to see them. Those are home runs, especially for people in Colorado. That music is all about the essence of Colorado music. And we have been working on all of these acts for a while.
Can I tell you that Dave stayed out of the market to wait for Mile High? It wasn’t intentional. If Dave wanted to play Denver last year, he would have. It didn’t work out for his routing, and it made more sense to bring him back to the festival this year.
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com; Twitter @RVRB
