As I mentioned last week, we attended the first annual Mile High Music Festival over the weekend, or what I hope is the first annual. Overall I felt that the event was a huge success, easily deserving of a B or B+ grade, and with a few changes could become one of the truly great festivals in the country. Here are some of the highlights and lowlights from the weekend.

The first highlight of the event was the lineup. For me, there was no better festival lineup this year than this one, although Rothbury was very similar. Though, due to tight scheduling, I missed a few artists that were on my list from last week, I still managed to catch most of them. Steve Winwood was probably the surprise show of the weekend, he and the accompanying band sounded great and I was shocked at how many songs I knew. The headliners provided amazing shows as well, especially both Tom Petty and the Dave Matthews Band.

Another positive from the weekend were the sound systems. The sound setup on the main stage was perfect, well unless you were off to the far side of the stage, but who wants to be there anyway. The addition of a secondary stack of speakers was perfect for those of us who don’t want to fight to the front of the crowd. The sound was also very good at one of the smaller stages, aka the Bullsnake Stage. From the few shows I saw in the tents, I would also say the sound there was acceptable. The one stage that needed work was the Lizard Stage, which I felt really affected some of the performances there, especially Jason Mraz’s.

As far as lowlights go, the top of the list for me is transportation. I am still shocked that the promoters didn’t setup shuttle buses from downtown. If this is going to be anything more than a local festival, meaning people coming to town just to see the concert, then there needs to be a better way to get there. We took a cab back and forth both nights. We paid $60 for a minivan full on the way there. When we attempted to leave the festival grounds, we were greeted by a huge line of people waiting for cabs, and not cabs to be found. Fortunately we were able to get the same drive to come back and pick us up, but it came at an even larger price.

Another thing that could use some improvement were the available vendors on site. True, there were some good vendors on hand, but there is easily some room for improvement. Budweiser is easily the most unlikely vendor I would have thought would have been at the festival, but they were there and that was all that was there. That’s right, no micro-brews. This must change. Food vendors were hit or miss, and unfortunately we missed on the first night. Oh well, not much you can do about that, just hope for a better choice next time.

I’m hoping that they will learn from the mistakes and make the changes needed to make the festival even better than it already was. I know that I will definitely return.

I wish I would have gotten more sleep this week, this is going to be a long weekend. Over the next two days the first ever Mile High Music Festival is taking place in Denver. Highlights have to be seeing both Dave Matthews and O.A.R. in back to back nights, which is almost as cool as seeing O.A.R. open for DMB. Each day we’ll be getting to the festival close to the start time, and won’t leave until the headliners are done. Check out the lineup, and be prepared to be jealous. I’ll take suggestions as to who I should see perform, but I already have a preliminary list:

Saturday:

• Eric Hutchinson: 12-12:30
• Kellogg: 12:30-1:15
• Newton Faulkner: 1:15-2
• State Radio: 2-3
• Mraz: 3-4
• Steve Windwood/Citizen Cope: 4-5:30
• JJ Grey & Mofro: 5-6
• O.A.R.: 6-7:30
• Spearhead: 7:30-8:45
• Petty: 9-11:15

Sunday:

• Brett Dennen: 12:30-1:15
• Rose Hill Drive: 1:15-2
• Martin Sexton: 2-3
• Tea Leaf Green: 3-4
• Flogging Molly: 4-5
• Grace Potter: 5-6
• Roots/Black Crowes: 6:45-8:45
• DMB: 8:45-11:15

I’m sure this will change a bit, but it looks like a good start.

Last night was one of those shows I’m still angry I didn’t tape. Kim and I headed to the Soiled Dove Underground a little later than originally planned, and showed up just as Will Hoge was taking the stage. I knew we were going to be pushing it close, so I didn’t take the recording gear along with me. Had I known how unique the venue was, and how great the show would be I would have definitely changed my mind.

Firstly, the Soiled Dove is a small and intimate venue, where a circular stage sits high above the floor below. On the floor are many tables, each sitting four people. Behind that is another level starting with a bar rail, which is where our seats were. There is an even higher level back behind the second, and both of these are full of more four person tables. All of the seats have a small lighted number post on the table/bar, and there is a little switch on it which when flipped turns on a red light at the top of the post. This is an indication to the servers that you’d like to order something. This setup leads to an incredibly silent room, which I’m sure can lead to some great shows as last night proves.

Will Hoge started off the night by playing a few songs by himself on the acoustic guitar and lots of harmonica playing thrown in as well. It was awesome to hear his distinguished voice in such clarity and mostly silent crowd. Following a few mellow songs, the other two band members joined him on stage for a set of much louder, but still great sounding, songs. I think the crowd was mostly familiar with Hoge, but those who may not have been would definitely have to be fans after seeing this show. At the end of the night, a four or five song encore was played with a mix of solo/acoustic songs and a couple of full band songs to cap off the night.

Note to self, see more shows at the Soiled Dove. O.A.R. played there once back in 2001, and I wish I could have caught that show. Perhaps I’ll have to find the tape from that night.

O.A.R.’s latest disc, All Sides, is out in stores today! Though I haven’t received a hard copy of it yet, just mp3’s, I’ve heard there is another shout-out to yours truly and oarsa.org in the liner notes. Many fans felt like their prior disc, Stories of a Stranger, was a departure from the bands normal songwriting style and was way too overproduced. I’m happy to report that this one release is back to the old ways and is one of their best albums to date. I would highly recommend picking up a copy as soon as you can, and if you need a little convincing you can listen to the entire thing at VH1.com.

Kim and I headed back to Fiddler’s Green last night for our second show there. This time the lineup was a little more rocking than the Stevie Wonder show we saw earlier. Another difference was that the tickets were not free this time and were not in the reserved seats either. I must say now after sitting in the lawn, it should be the last time I ever do so there, at least with a crowd of that size. We got there as the first band of the night, Cheap Trick, was finishing up their set and there wasn’t a good spot left on the lawn. Though we missed hearing them play “I Want You to Want Me” we did get to hear the next most popular song “Surrender” and I wish we would have arrived earlier as they could have been the most entertaining of the night.

Next up was Heart, the act I might have been most excited to see. The Wilson sisters and the rest of the band started off a little slow with some of the lesser known songs, but eventually they got into the groove with a toned down performance of “Alone” which later launched into rocking versions of “Crazy on You” and “Barracuda.” I must say that they sounded great throughout the short 45 minute set and I wish they would have played a bit longer. Though they did play a quick encore, including a Led Zeppelin cover. It’s not every day you see an non-headliner play an encore.

Finally, the night was wrapped up with Journey and their latest front-man, Arnel Pineda who was hired after band members saw him performing cover songs on YouTube. Though I’m not sure he compares to Steve Perry, he does a pretty good job filling in and at times you could be completely fooled into thinking Mr. Perry was on stage. There were some good tunes thrown in early, but I felt that they played a few too many new songs as well. I highly doubt many in the sold out crowd were there for the new stuff. But when they did bust out the hits, the crowd went wild!

We attended yet another show last night, this time it was Stone Temple Pilots at Red Rocks. Growing up I was a big fan of the band starting with their 1992 debut, Core, through the middle to late 90s. Having never seen the band live before, I was not going to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity. Soon after tickets went on sale for this tour, I snagged a pair of seats in the twentieth row.

We arrived late last night, at around 8:30, after meeting a friend for dinner. I wasn’t worried though as I had heard much about the delayed start time for the band on this tour and figured they wouldn’t go on until around nine. I pretty much nailed that down perfectly and we found our seats with just a few minutes before the show started. I could have done without the wind at the beginning of the show as it distorted the sound quite a bit, but from what I could tell the band sounded very tight. The singer, Scott Weiland, on the other hand was a bit off and I felt he really struggled through “Big Bang Baby.”

As the show went on and the crowd became more intoxicated, we left our twentieth row seats and moved toward the more open top of the venue. The nice thing about Red Rocks is that there really isn’t a bad seat in the place. We continued to listen to a greatest hits set for the most part, which I was happy to hear and admit that the sound got better throughout the night, both music and vocals. I wouldn’t say that I was blown away by the performance, and probably won’t spend money again to see them play, but it was nice to finally scratch them off my list of acts I’d like to see.

Last night I attended my first concert ever at Fiddler’s Green, the 16,000+ seat amphitheater in the heart of the Denver Tech Center, near where Kim and I both work. And what a night for firsts, as it was my first time seeing the legendary Stevie Wonder perform live in concert. Kim was fortunate enough to get a couple of free tickets from her office building, we’re assuming complimentary tickets the building gets for allowing show-goers to use their parking facilities.

The show itself started off a bit slow for me with a number of songs that I wasn’t too familiar with, but soon enough the hits started pouring in. It seemed like Stevie and the thirteen others who accompanied him on stage (three percussionists, two additional keyboards, a couple guitar players, bass, saxophone, trumpet, and three backup singers one of which was his very own daughter) alternated between hit songs and those the audience was less familiar with. With the catalog of songs that he has written, this process went on for quite a bit of time.

Among the highlights of the night included “My Cherie Amour,” “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours),” “Sir Duke,” and “Superstition” to name a few. A local radio station held a contest with the winner to sing a duet with Stevie on “You Are the Sunshine of My Life.” Though the winner was visually nervous from the encounter, the result was still touching and I’m sure it is something she will never forget. I know that I will never forget the first time I saw Stevie Wonder live.

There is a more thorough review of the show from the Westword blog, which can fill in any details I skipped over. I cannot wait for my next show at Fiddler’s Green. Did someone say Journey and Heart?

The only shows I’ve seen recently have all been provided by SoundRabbit. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing at all, as I love their music, but I just haven’t been getting around to as many shows as I once did. And that’s pretty surprising to me since the music scene out here is nearly as good as it gets. Hopefully I’ll start getting out more with the warmer weather and abundance of summertime shows.

Anyway, I’ve uploaded a few recordings of recent SoundRabbit shows to archive.org. The first one available is the show from the Mercury Cafe, which I wrote about previously. Second is a short but sweet set from Herman’s Hideaway just a couple of weeks ago, available here. Both of these have a great cover of Life During Wartime by the Talking Heads.

In completely unrelated music news, the first single from O.A.R.’s upcoming release All Sides can be heard here.

As I mentioned toward the end of last week, my parents were out visiting for the weekend. This was their first trip out since they helped us with our first house hunting trip out here in Denver. We kept very busy throughout the weekend, and among the events was a concert out at Red Rocks. Though I’m not typically a country music fan, I decided to buy tickets to the show for Mother’s Day. And besides, I always say that any show at Red Rocks is worth seeing.

The lineup for the night included Sugarland and Pat Green, neither of which I was familiar with other than knowing that they sang country. I must say that I was a little surprised by both acts. First, Pat Green was a pretty funny guy up on stage and you could really tell that he was loving every minute of playing at the legendary venue. His music was a bit on the rock edge of genre, and he was accompanied by a talented band.

Sugarland is a duo act consisting of the primary female singer, and a guy on guitar, mandolin, and also vocals. In addition to these two there was a full band on the stage with them. Again, the band was totally trilled about playing at Red Rocks, and it showed in their performance. They are definitely country, and it’s hard to understand a thing the front lady is saying at times, but they were entertaining. And to complete the night, they ended the show with a cover of a Matt Nathanson song, followed up by a pretty solid take on Pour Some Sugar on Me. I will admit that I had a much better time than I was anticipating.

Today is dragging along at a slow pace. Typically Fridays fly by, but today I’m a little tired and just not feeling the whole work thing. This is probably due to me staying out a little too late on a school night. The occasion was a SoundRabbit show at this funky little place called the Mercury Cafe. I arrived a little early and walked up the steps to ask the door guy where the concert was going to be. Once upstairs I knew it wasn’t going to be there, since there was some sort of swing dancing going on. We finally concluded that the show was downstairs in a little room connected to the restaurant.

I chatted with the band while they were setting up, mostly about the tour that they just did that took them all the way out to the east coast and then back to Colorado. It sounds like they had a good time and are ready to take a similar trip next month. The show was good as always, though the manager tried stopping them after only a couple of songs saying that they were too loud. The problem was that they started off with some of the quieter tunes in the repertoire. Anyway, the show went on and the lady didn’t say anything else, she would just occasionally pop her head in and stare at everyone. It definitely toned down the night, but it was nice to see the band play again. I actually took my recording gear along and should have a tape online sometime soon.