This New Music Festival Is Bringing Together Some of Denver's Best Indie Bands This Weekend

Music festivals are almost like a vacation — a time to unwind, to kick back with friends and make some new memories. Colorado will host many music festivals this summer, but one that we're particularly excited for is the new street festival Indiewood, which makes its debut this Saturday, June 7, with a dope lineup of some of the best local indie and rock bands.

"It's been a really fun way for us to re-enter the festival business," says Jessy Clark, CEO of Swallow Hill Music, which partnered with Downtown Englewood to produce the day-long event.

"The lineup is awesome," Clark promises.

And it really is: After doors open at noon, indie-rock band Barbara will perform at 1 p.m. (if you haven't listened to this group's recent sophomore release, SO THIS IS LIVING, get on that), followed by the dreamy indie-pop of Sunstoney at 2 p.m. Rootbeer Richie & the Reveille will then showcase its bluesy rock starting at 3 p.m., and Americana act Yarn will take on the next hour before the headliner, shoegaze-psychedelia group Kiltro, starts its set at 5:30 p.m. to finish things off. "I'm super excited to share the stage with some of the best local bands in Denver," Sunstoney tells us. "And to be included in something that highlights the community is sick."

Local artist Cal Duran is also on board to create a piece for Indiewood titled "Garden of Connection: A Vibrant Story of Imagination at Little Dry Creek," which will celebrate the history, people and animals of Englewood. "The goal is to activate and reimagine the Little Dry Creek Plaza and park," says Hilarie Portell, executive director of the Englewood Downtown Development Authority. "Folks can hang out on the plaza, eat, drink and chat with the park designers during the festival."

Detour, another celebrated artist and muralist, will be collaborating on a "creative crosswalk" for the festival as well, she adds.
For more than a decade, Swallow Hill, a local nonprofit that hosts concerts and music-education classes, hosted two popular annual festivals dubbed Blues and Brews and Brewgrass, both under the Pearl Street Festival banner. After the pandemic put an end to those events, Clark and the Swallow Hill team mulled over ways to bring a new festival to life. Clark hadn't planned on pitching a fest when she went to an Englewood City Council meeting a little over a year ago, but it ended up being the start of a surprisingly streamlined process.

"We were talking about unrelated things, and I said, 'We really want to get back into the festival business,'" she recalls. "And it was Hilarie at the EDDA who said, 'Do you want to do that in Englewood?'"

Together, the nonprofit and city hit the ground running. As Clark puts it: "When you have two partners that are in it to win it, it really makes the process a lot easier. Everything from permitting to EMS, the road closures, they've just been amazing. And so I'm really grateful."

While music festivals — particularly city-based festivals — are notorious for being difficult to produce, the close partnership with Englewood made navigating the permitting process a breeze. "It's been over a year of planning, and it really was by happenstance. And I mean, I've got to give credit: Englewood is a dream to work with — their city council, their downtown development group, their cultural council, their local businesses," Clark says. "They have all been incredibly supportive of this."

The feeling is mutual. "The Swallow Hill folks are fantastic partners and such pros," Portell says. "The alignment is great. Downtown Englewood is a really independent, creative, low-key place. We welcome Indiewood and look forward to having music on the street, sidewalks and patios all afternoon!"

The inaugural Indiewood will take place on South Acoma Street around the corner from West Hampden, just parallel to the "spaceship bank" at 3501 South Broadway (a map is available on the website). "I dig the funkiness of South Broadway," says Clark, who adds that such events are great activations for surrounding businesses and shops. "The local businesses have been coming up in a really meaningful way, whether it's in-kind donations or corporate sponsorship, and that's been really cool."

The event is already selling well, and Clark says Indiewood has the potential to become an annual affair. "It's like a pilot for us, in the sense that we'll learn things from this year, and we'll tweak it," she says. But right now, she's just in awe of how smoothly it all came about.

"I feel like this is a little bit of a unicorn in all the right ways," she says. "So we're going to ride this wave!"

Indiewood, noon to 7 p.m. Saturday, June 7, downtown Englewood. Tickets are $24.68 for general admission, $19.53 for Englewood residents and Swallow Hill members, and $9.23 for kids age four to twelve (age three and under free).