After touring heavily from 2007-2011 with his band Finn Riggins, playing stops at festivals such as Denver’s Underground Music Showcase, South By Southwest and CMJ, Eric Gilbert realized the music scene in his city of Boise, Idaho was primed for something big.
“Just playing all over the country and seeing these different markets and scenes, me and a few other musicians, we talked about how that style of festival could work well in Boise and it would help the local scene,” said Gilbert, who co-founded Treefort Music Festival in 2012.
Inspired in-part by Denver’s UMS, Treefort brings a mix of national and local acts to various venues around Boise with a focus on emerging and underground talent. Music discovery — itap not an easy product to sell, especially in a smaller market like Idaho, and that first year, Gilbert wasn’t sure if the locals were interested.
“That first year of doing the festival it was hard to tell if people were coming, but when (Finn Riggins) played at 6 p.m. on that Thursday and the room was packed, I was like ‘whoa people are actually coming to this thing,’” Gilbert said. “And it wasn’t until then that I had a sense that this might work.”
Using the model similar to the UMS, Treefort has grown substantially in the last three years, helping boost Boise’s visibility as a music market and building its connection to other markets — specifically Denver. From 140 bands in four days, Treefort has expanded to 430 bands during five days on 20 stages in 2015. It has even branched out to include events like a film festival and the technology meetup, Hackfort, which was recently praised by President Barack Obama during a visit to Boise State University.
And this success has mirrored the overall changes in the Boise music scene.
“Itap changed a lot. I won’t take full credit for it from Treefort, but I think it played a valuable role in it,” Gilbert said. “We’re seeing a big boom in bands stopping here and an increase in the support for the bands from here. That was one of our big pushes.”
That support has come from many of Idaho’s neighboring states, but Gilbert said Denver musicians have been key to the regional visibility of Treefort.
“A lot of Denver bands embraced it from the get-go, and because I had played UMS so many times, I was familiar with Denver bands and had made friends there,” Gilbert said.
This year, 20 Colorado bands will be traveling to Boise for the fourth Treefort Music Festival on March 25-29. Colorado acts such as Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Rose Quartz, Snake Rattle Rattle Snake, the Blue Rider, Elephant Revival and more will join national headliners TV on the Radio, Built To Spill, of Montreal and Trampled By Turtles.
“We’ve definitely seen an increase in Denver bands wanting to stop in Boise,” Gilbert said. “I don’t know how established that relationship was in the past. Itap still developing, but I continue to feel a better connection to Denver.”
Bands like Denver’s Snake Rattle Rattle Snake have increasingly made Treefort and Boise a destination in recent years, even favoring the Idaho fest over the mega-sized South By Southwest in Austin, which is happening this week.
“It was a breath fresh air after going to SXSW that year, which was insane,” said Snake Rattle Rattle Snake frontwoman Hayley Helmericks. “You got the sense that it was smaller, I’m sure that they looked at The UMS when they got going because it has a similar vibe in a lot of ways.”
Snake Rattle Rattle Snake will be returning to Treefort this year to play at 12 a.m. on March 29 at the Neurolux.
Helmericks said that bands are starting to make Boise a stop while routing tours, musicians are starting to move there — all trends she said have picked up since 2012.
“A lot of national bands from all over are traveling to go there,” Helmericks said. “You can tell that Boise wants to build that scene.”
In this region, where the next big market is a full day’s drive away, itap not easy for bands or fans to test out a new music market. Helmericks said itap difficult, but these types of events help bring the bands in different cities together.
“I know itap seeing other bands and making friends, that will always make you want to go back to a place,” Helmericks said. “By seeing another city’s bands play, thatap just building connections to that place.”
And The UMS is working to facilitate that connection with Treefort Music Festival this year by bringing a host of bands on a four-date tour northwest to Boise. Denver’s Ned Garthe Explosion, Bud Bronson & the Good Timers, A. Tom Collins and the Blue Rider will stop in Fort Collins, Billings, Montana; Boise and Salt Lake City to perform with a local band in each market. At Treefort, The UMS is presenting a Denver day party, giving the Colorado bands another chance to perform for Boise audiences.
“We’ve always had a host of Boise bands here and bands that he’s worked with at previous UMSs and every year at Treefort there seems an increasing of Denver bands that are invited to play,” said UMS Director Kendall Smith. “There’s always been that mutual admiration between the two festivals.”
The idea is for these bands to represent Denver and their own music in Boise and on each stop on the tour.
“The model of a showcase thatap a multi day showcase that can really shine a light on a regional music scene and grow audience in that scene, thatap valuable to any music scene,” Smith said. “And we’re proving that by seeing these pop up in other cities.”
Linked in attitude and execution, The UMS and Treefort also share a similar goal, to show off local talent and a specific music scene to a regional and national audience.
“When an event like this happens, a lot of people coalesce around it. And now that you have a community to look at, things are a little different. The value in any of these things are having a shared voice that amplify it so itap easier to discern than if you’re on the outside looking in,” Smith said. “If a few artists from one community can go into another community and play at the same time, I think there’s a benefit there.”
Follow our news and updates on , our relationship status on and our search history on . Or send us a telegram.
Reverb Managing Editor has a really common name so please use these links to find his and . Or just send him an email to mrmiller@denverpost.com.
