Music Festivals Create a Pure Sense of Community

Where will you find your new favorite summer song? 

A year ago all anyone who loved music wanted to do was attend a concert on the Era’s Tour. One of the defining factors of that tour was the community that developed in, and around, each show. For seasoned concert-goers this wasn’t an entirely new experience, the surprise (and joy) was perhaps in the scale. That’s because there are dozens of opportunities, in every city, to recreate similar (albeit smaller) musical communities at local festivals large and small each summer.

The communal experience of gathering with family, neighbors, and friends you haven’t met yet to listen to someone who maybe lives just a couple of streets away share their artistry is a particular summer treat. Residents in the area are especially fortunate because of the number and range of opportunities to see live music. Yes there are larger venues that afford you the opportunity to see national or up-and-coming acts but we also have a host of festivals and local venues, from straight concert stages to brewery back rooms and library spaces, where the primary driver for a performer is not how much they will make but how much they can play. 

There are places like church socials and the “____” festival that takes place in the open area of town. In those spaces you’ll find musicians with talent, power, poise, and professionalism that’s often equal to any “big-time” performer. If they don’t have the name recognition yet, who cares. What they lack in top-line billing they more than make up for in the infectious way that they utilize their talents.

The region’s diverse population, driven in part by our university connections, means that the range of music you will hear in the summer months runs the gamut from traditional classical to avant garde. On nearly every weekend in the summer there’s a musician playing the type of music that you built your record collection around. This means there are also numerous low-investment opportunities to “try out” something new. Going into a concert blind, being unaware as to what you will hear, is not a negative thing. Live music takes on a dimension that even the best recording equipment can’t capture so experiencing it for the first time, as it plays in communion with even just one other audience member, can give you the experience, and even understanding, of a music, performer or culture that you otherwise would not have ever had.

This low-impact exposure that some concerts and festivals provide also gives you an easy way to expose the younger members of your family to different styles of music. The hope is that they will love the music on their own or maybe the excitement of hearing a live performance surrounded by others in the community will be an extra push towards putting the music in the plus column for them. 

Free and festive

One great opportunity to do that is at the Colorado Music Festival which will hold a free family concert on July 12. In addition to one of national treasure John William’s non-filmic pieces you’ll experience the musical story of Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev. It promises to be not only entertaining but an easy entry point into a music genre that some people have trouble connecting with.

You can experience a different genre of music at the Flatiron Sounds Music Fest on June 21. In addition to free performances from Armchair Boogie, Lindsay Lou, and Blessing Bed Chimanga you’ll have an opportunity to enjoy local food vendors. Plus an artisan market gives this the full festival feel.

One of the best examples of the confluence of music and community will be found in late summer at the Boulder Roots Music Festival. Held up and down Pearl Street, this year’s incarnation will showcase over 800 performers in twenty venues across three days. It’s an incredible mix of artists all in one compact place. If there is a downside to this festival it’s that it is a ticketed event.

A sampling of international sounds

If you’re looking for music with a stronger international flavor, the Mountain View United Methodist Church in Boulder will host Adjei Abankwah. He will be sharing the music of Ghana as part of the Cultural Caravan festival on June 6. While at the Lafayette Public Library Zivanai Masango will entertain with melodies on the Zimbabwean marimba. That event, which takes place on June 6 with a second show on June 13 in Erie, highlights another bonus of more hyper-focused local concerts – opportunities to interact more directly with the performer and their instrument. Over in Longmont on July 11,  you can sample the music of Nepal at the Nepali Jatra.

A new way to listen

There is something different about listening to a song sitting in a lawn chair in a parking lot or on a blanket spread across the green grass of the park you usually only come to with the dog for exercise. Even if you’ve heard the song a dozen times before, in that summer setting it just has a different sound. Not bad, but different. More tangible. It’s not just something felt by the audience but those on the other side of the instruments as well.

Musician Peter Frasier said “There is something powerful about playing for your community, especially at a festival or celebration. It’s an opportunity to, in probably the truest sense, do what we all really love to do and that’s to change the way that a person feels.”

“Music can have this really amazing effect on people,” Fraiser continued. “And when we’re out playing and you see people, of all ages really, just…connect with the music, especially when maybe they’re walking in the background going to do something else and they just stop and then wander over and join us…we really are connecting, if just for a brief moment, together as a true community.”

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