Colorado changing music fest tune

Colorado's king of live music, Chuck Morris, has spent nearly 40 years drawing the biggest names to the Denver area.

As a small-club manager in Boulder in the 1970s, he booked The Eagles and ZZ Top, managed Lyle Lovett and Leftover Salmon in the 1980s, and more recently opened up venues like the Fillmore and City Lights Pavilion in Denver.

And now he's managed to pull off what he calls one of his "crowning achievements" - this weekend's Mile High Music Festival in Commerce City.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer headline the two-day festival, which features 44 bands on five stages at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, a collection of soccer fields about 10 miles northeast of downtown Denver.

"It's the largest event in the history of Colorado music," with 50,000 tickets available per day, said Morris, currently president and chief executive of AEG Live Rocky Mountain Region.

Summer music festivals, longtime staples in Europe, started cropping up stateside in the 1960s, and lately, have been multiplying like bunnies. Lollapalooza in Chicago, Coachella in Southern California, Bonnaroo in Tennessee, South by Southwest in Austin, among others, have become huge economic boons for their host towns, drawing high school- and college-age local crowds as well as hoards of the country's migrating scenester population, which roves the country tirelessly from coast to coast in search of the next great up-and-comer.

Colorado, home of Red Rocks Amphitheater and the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, got its own indie festival, Monolith, last year, thus propelling the state, with Denver leading the charge, further into the national music consciousness.

The decision to launch the Mile High, a more broad-appeal festival, "was a no-brainer," Morris said. "This is the last remaining piece of the puzzle for Colorado to become one of the finest music destinations in the country."

About 15 percent of the Mile High's ticket presales were to out-of-staters, Morris said, but the lineup caters to the local crowd.

"This festival is about two things, the superstars and the local bands," he said. The superstars, which in addition to the headliners include the Black Crowes, the Roots, Mike Gordon and Spoon, have proven themselves favorites of Colorado radio listeners. Morris and his staff hand-picked big names that are strong in the Colorado market, as well as a list of homegrown bands of varying genres.

The Railbenders, a hard rock-country band from Denver, join local alt-rockers Meese in Saturday's lineup. On Sunday, the bluesy Boulder-based Rose Hill Drive plays, as do the Flobots, currently one of Denver's best-known bands.

"I'm really excited," Flobots drummer Kenny Ortiz said of playing a major festival in his home town. "Over the years, there've been incredible bands in Denver; there always have been" he said. "There's a perception of this being a sports town, or a cow town. People don't look to Denver as a music mecca. That's changing now. There's a growing reputation of being a great music town."

The Flobots grew out of a collection of Denver natives in 1996 and slowly evolved into the eclectic hip-hop band with violin, viola and trumpet instrumentals. In 2007, they won KTCL's (93.3 FM) Hometown for the Holidays contest and started getting heavy rotation for their self-released album "Fight With Tools" on that station and nationwide.

"After that, sales went through the roof," said Ortiz, who joined the band in 2006.

Earlier this year, the band signed with Universal Republic and hit the road for a six-week summer tour.

"You just have to be patient enough," Ortiz said of making music in Colorado, which he's been doing for 20 years.

"Never have I wanted to move to different market to make it big - I never thought I had to leave town."

The Mile High will benefit local bands by drawing attention to Denver, and, ideally, bringing in fans from other states, Ortiz said.

Rose Hill Drive's lead singer and bass player, Jake Sproul, agreed.

"This festival is launching a big era in Denver music," Sproul said.

The Boulder-based band, which released its latest album, "Moon Is the New Earth," in June, has toured nationwide and played festivals like Seattle's Bumbershoot and Austin City Limits.

"I feel like it's getting big, but I have no idea what shape it'll take," he said of Colorado's music scene. "There's definitely a vibration from the foothills that you don't see anywhere else. In Denver, you've got a gamut of great bands, but no one scene."

Because of that, in the future, as Denver becomes a music destination, it won't be like other cities, he said. "Maybe it'll be a melting pot," he said. "Regardless, this festival is going to be huge."

Morris said that there's no way the Mile High festival won't become an annual affair. "There's too much prep for this to just be a one-time thing," he said. "Expect this for a long time to come.

"It's the first of many."

details

MILE HIGH MUSIC FESTIVAL

When: Saturday and Sunday
Where: Dick's Sporting Goods Park, Quebec Street and 60th Avenue (just north of old Stapleton Airport, Commerce City)
Cost: $85 per day; $150 for both days; $495 for 2-day VIP pass (service fees and parking not included). You can purchase tickets tickethorse.com or avoid high service fees by visiting the box office at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.