It doesn’t take much to convince Coloradans to turn up to a music festival. Especially not one with a history of mingling national acts with home-state indie darlings the way the Bluebird Music Festival, which happens this weekend in Boulder, is known to do.
We’ve also got a cool blend of theater and literature, a brand new restaurant week and a bluegrass bash on the Western Slope, all below.
April 16-22
Bluebird Music Festival. Most of the tickets for the festival, which takes place this weekend, are already sold out. But stick with me! There are still a handful of Saturday afternoon tickets available at the time of writing (go, go, go) for a two-hour show featuring Shakey Graves, Chaparelle, Mon Rovîa, and LVDY playing the festival’s unique “strings and stories” format, where each artist strums a few songs and tells a couple tales.
You can also still snag tickets to The Galentines bonus show at the Velvet Elk Lounge Saturday night, and a Sunday Blues Brunch featuring bottomless bevvies and a 90-minute set from Otis Taylor and his band.
While the headliners this year are Gregory Alan Isakov and Shakey Graves, the real stars of the festival are the Bluebird School All-Stars, a group of about a dozen students performing a free concert at Rosetta Hall on Thursday night. The students formed the inaugural class of The Bluebird School, a free songwriting and performance program for teens ages 14 to 18, established last fall by the Future Arts Foundation (which also runs the Bluebird Music Festival).
The Future Arts Foundation has been donating instruments and musical support to public schools around Colorado since 2014, and the Bluebird School is their first attempt to bring some of that curriculum in-house. For 10 weeks the students have learned everything from the basic structure of songwriting to how to perform for a crowd in anticipation of their Bluebird debut.
Various prices; April 16-19; Various venues in Boulder
Other events to consider
- Stories on Stage. An evening that blends literature and theater into a set of short stories read by professional actors. Sunday night’s show features stories by Colorado authors Erika Krouse, Laura Pritchett and Cynthia Swanson. $26; 2 p.m., April 19; Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center, 721 Santa Fe Dr., Denver
- Westy Restaurant Week. Westminster’s first ever restaurant week starts tomorrow, with special meals ranging from $15-$55 at nearly 40 restaurants around town. Click here to explore the map. Various prices; April 17-26; Various locations in Westminster
- Palisade Bluegrass Bash. Four days of bluegrass across five boozy stages — the pour house, the brewery, the distillery, the cider company and the saloon — in Palisade, with a free shuttle running festivalgoers between venues. $40; April 16-19; Various venues in Palisade
Note: This is a curated list by the reporter to give readers a sense of arts and culture events happening across Colorado that they may not have otherwise known about. This is not meant to be an exhaustive account of things to do.