Do You Hear The Music?

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Well back from Denver and I already miss that place.  What an incredible city that really has everything to offer.  Every time I visit I find more reasons to love the city.  To say Mile High Music Festival was a success is an understatement, it was just about as good as it gets.  Spread over 24 fields, it was definitely music euphoria with three stages, two tents and a “beach” to bounce back and forth to.  AEG did a really great job laying out the festival and making everything easily accessible and a fun time for all.  Enough small talk, here are some highlights of Day 1.

• While getting settled for Donavon Frankenreiter as the first act of the day, had the chance to hear Bobby Long’s set and this might have been my surprise of MHMF.  He’s a British singer-songwriter and has a great voice and rocked the stage as if he was the headliner at MHMF.  I’ll be checking out his music this week and I suggest you do the same as he just signed with ATO Records (Dave Matthews) so expect big things from this fella
• Donavon Frankenreiter was the perfect act to get the afternoon set in motion.  A great crowd convened to the main stage and we were treated to a few surprises; John Oates of Hall & Oates sat in on the entire set, Donavon did a very chill cover of Tom Petty’s “American Girl” and he also performed his new single “Glow” which we wrote about on August 4
• ALO crushed MHMF with their upbeat and lively performance.  Opening with one of my favorites, “Maria,” the crowd kept growing and growing as the boys jammed nonstop to songs old and new including “Man of the World” the title track off their latest release
• Nas & Damian “Jr Gong” Marley was one of the most entertaining acts of the day.  In what began as a high energy emcee/DJ hip-hop get down, turned into a Nas greatest hits concert with the rapper performing everything from “Street Dreams” to “If I Ruled the World” and then melding into reggae-rap with the duo performing “As We Enter” and a heap of other tracks before giving way to Marley performing “Welcome To Jamrock” and singing a bunch of his father’s legendary music
• Rusted Root jammed on well past their scheduled time with “Ecstasy” reverberating throughout the festival grounds
• Cypress Hill was getting wild and definitely running the gamut on their hits
• Keane came on late and was disappointing enough that I only stayed for two songs.  The only good thing about Keane coming on late was the opportunity to sing-along to the Steve Miller Band
• Slightly Stoopid the act I was most looking forward to seeing at MHMF put on a fun set that included “Wicked Rebel” and “Collie Man” and the boys were joined by B-Real of Cypress Hill for their encore
• Sadly missed Phoenix (same time as Slightly Stoopid) but heard they killed it
• Caught the end of Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi on the way to Jack Johnson – it’s a shame they didn’t have a great crowd and I really can’t talk since I didn’t make the extra effort to hear them either
• Jack Johnson definitely brought the masses and put on a really fun show but it seemed too chill and not enough energy coming from him.  Some highlights of his set did include Jack brining up Doanvon Franenreiter to perform “Breakdown” and “Mud Football” – which had the two embrace with a big hug at first (not sure the last time they shared the stage together since having a musical “falling-out”) and performing ALO’s “Girl I Wanna Lay You Down” with Zach Gill

More notes from Day 1: Beta Beach was bumping great house music all day and provided a good place to cool off in the water playground; in Coors Country and Budweiser was the beer sponsor?; Whole Foods was easily the best vendor at MHMF with cheap (yes, really) food and drinks and an amazing deal on SIGG water bottles and Honest Tea refills for $1; Justin’s Almond Butter and Hazelnut Spread are amazing; TicketHorse is the future of purchasing concert tickets.

Tags: ALO, Beta Nightclub, Bobby Long, Cypress Hill, Damian MArley, Denver, Derek Trucks, Dick's Sporting Goods Park, Donavon Frankenreiter, Jack Johnson, John Oates, Justin's Nut Butter, Keane, Mile High Music Festival, Nas, Phoenix, Rusted Root, SIGG, Slightly Stoopid, Whole Foods