Welcome to our first review at Wildfire Reviews in a few years. We'll be reviewing our experience at Planet Bluegrass's Rocky Mountain Folk Festival and the big event the following night of the weekend: The Perseids Meteor Shower.
The 2023 Rocky Mountain Folk Festival was held at the Planet Bluegrass Ranch in Lyons, CO over three days this past weekend and had a wonderful collection of musicians. This is a complete review of day one of the festival, Friday, August 11, 2023, including both lows and highlights.
The booth stands on Friday, Aug 11 at the 2023 Rocky Mountain Folk Festival.
Being at the festival for the first time reminded us of the festival stages and experiences at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival as it's organized by the same promoters. The big difference is the size of course, with the festival in Lyons being much smaller than the big events over in Telluride. This is always a good thing regarding folk music, especially when most of the time it's just acoustic guitars playing on stage that demand to be heard by everyone in the crowd.
The first day of any kind of festival always seems like a warmup. While this was certainly true for the 2023 Rocky Mountain Folk Festival as people filled the grounds, it almost seemed like the highlight of the festival was Friday evening when blues rockers Larkin Poe took the stage. Before then, a handful of folk and southern blues musicians graced the stage. As The Tallest Man on Earth quoted, 'I know everyone is just waiting for Larkin Poe, trust me, you're in for a treat!'
The opening act for Larkin Poe was The Tallest Man on Earth, who most of the time just played an acoustic guitar and sang. However, his backup band was good when they joined him, and this was the true folk music people seemed to be used to when attending the folk festival. He seemed to be extremely energetic and even jumped off stage to take some time to sing to the VIPS up front to get the crowd going.
The highlight of the entire day was southern blues artist Katie Pruitt who performed an electrifying set Friday afternoon. Both extremely passionate and energetic, Katie rocked out on many songs despite it being a folk festival. Her voice was great and matched the musical instruments in the group extremely well. As a new southern blues artist, she is a beacon of light in a crowded blues world.
There seemed to be more blues artists taking the stage on Friday than folk, because around 9PM, Larkin Poe sisters gave Lyons a taste of their wonderful music style. Both Rebecca and Megan were in sync and performed perfectly, although it's younger sister Rebecca who did most of the talking Friday night.
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| Above: Left: Rebecca Lovell, Right: Megan Lovell at the 2023 Rocky Mountain Folk Festival. |
It was great hearing Rebecca explain the meaning behind many of their songs and Larkin's musical upbringings. Some of the highlights of their set included a powerful Robert Johnson cover towards the end and the sister's own version of 'I Put a Spell on You' when they performed 'Bad Spell'. Larkin Poe are always fantastic live, extremely energetic, passionate and beyond worth it experiencing a live performance. The sisters have their own unique attitude that they carry with them to every show. However, not everyone was pleased with the choice of headliners. More than one comment from the crowd complained how it's not folk music, which Larkin Poe certainly isn't. But blues music does indeed intertwine with folk as folk does with the blues. Colorado has always had a large blues following across the state, especially with how many times Samantha Fish and others like her seem to love performing around the state every year. Despite Larkin Poe not being officially folk music, they got the crowd up and going and performed an exceptional set Friday night.
The following night we were graced by an incredible performance by the 2023 Perseids Meteor shower. While camping at Rocky Mountain National Park at Glacier Basin campground, the skies luckily ended up clearing at around 1am. After that, hundreds of meteors shot across the dark skies above the park, sometimes a few of them shooting past every second. There was also no moon, which allowed the night skies to be exceptionally dark for the shower. Every type of meteor seemed to fly across the sky Sunday morning from bright blue, red and green ones to dim, quick moving ones and even slower ones that broke up in the sky directly above us. The Perseids of 2023 put on one of the best meteor showers in recent years. It was a great experience combined with the Rocky Mountain Folk Festival for an amazing weekend!
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