UMS 2021: Underground Music Showcase Sells out, Slays, and Reminds U that Live Music is King (Photos)

UMS, baby. After a long break, for every venue and musician on the planet basically, the Underground Music Showcase made its triumphant return on the South Broadway stretch it calls home. Featuring over a hundred live bands playing at 12 different venues across 8 blocks of Denver concrete for a three-day show from August 27th through 29th, one of the most important things that happened was it sold out. Was that a problem of capacity, given Coronavirus, or was that because we had less venues than last year, or maybe organizers just had less expectation? Maybe it just sold out because Coloradans fu*king love live music and UMS is a bad*ss show. The point is, before I belabor the point, it sold out. And the people showed up. 

While the days were as quiet as we recall in past years, given the late summer Colorado heat pounding down, the afternoons and nights lit up with fervor and flavor and feisty performances from, as expected, bands we know and bands we don’t but are damn glad we were introduced to. 

Big shout out to the organizers for an incredible array of performances, diversity of venues, and making sure everybody was safe. We were there taking photos and hanging out, having a blast, and this is what we saw.

All images by De La Vaca for Yellow Scene Magazine with support from Alissa Smithers.