The Pearl Street Music and Arts Festival will kick off the ever-busy summer festival season in Colorado this weekend. It seems long overdue for downtown Boulder to have a weekend street fest with national headliners, and even though this is the event’s inaugural year, things are off to a promising start. Produced by local Silverfox Productions (think Nedfest, Winterfest and Waterfront), the two-day music and art exhibition will be anchored by headlining sets from Dr. Dog, Mason Jennings, the Head and the Heart, Paper Bird and Gregory Alan Isakov at the Boulder Theater. Various local bars, restaurants and clubs also will host live music and DJs, and many stores along Pearl Street will offer sales and specials. Two-day passes are $75, single-day $39.50;
Jessica Lea Mayfield sings with a sincerity and soulfulness decades beyond her 21 years. No wonder, then, that the Ohio singer-songwriter has been performing live since elementary school, back when her family band, One Way Rider, gigged regularly around the Midwest. Mayfield’s 2011 release, “Tell Me,” marks a darker (and somehow, poppier) transition from her previous two records, and it will likely gain her new, older fans while alienating her younger “indie” followers. Tickets to Monday’s show at the Fox Theatre, $12.50-$15, are available through . Local folk troubadour Nathaniel Rateliff will support.
John Hendrickson: 303-954-1785; jhendrickson@denverpost.com
