Blucifer’s First Rodeo is the debut edition of Blucifer Fest, a music festival focused on local artists, independent venues and businesses as well as DIY spaces and the active Denver house show scene. The festival runs from Thursday July 23, 2026 through Sunday July 26, 2026 beginning with the DIY venue shows, the small venues and businesses on Friday and Saturday and closing with the house shows on Sunday and ending with a few performances including bands from the fest’s primary organizers. Two of the main heads behind the festival are Gillian Pasley of the cosmic Americana band Caspar Milquetoast and Mike Young of the psychedelic country group Clementine Was Right. Both had extensive experience in the world of underground and DIY music before moving to Denver during and shortly after the lifting of the pandemic restrictions. Pasley came from the East Coast and went to college in Ohio having organized a festival while in high school and putting together shows as a student at Oberlin and playing in various bands prior to moving to Colorado in 2022. Young is from California but has spent time in Portland, Oregon, New Mexico and other parts of the country playing in bands and organizing shows himself before landing in Colorado in 2020. Both have become significant participants in the local music community in addition to writing music and performing in two of the local scenes most noteworthy bands. For the festival the two pooled resources and traded ideas and honestly planned and executed one of the most ambitious local music festivals in the modern history of Denver by incorporating the DIY music scene more completely as well as the house show scene not to mention the significant Baker district area that has been a home to a good deal of local music venues featuring underground artists for decades. The festival involves hosts of the venues and Pasley and Young aimed to help participants know how to do this sort of thing themselves and in effect become stakeholders in the event in a way that empowers them some too. Going to any or all nights of the festival and you could randomly pick one of the venues and see a band that represents well some corner of the music scene as well as catch some of the more celebrated relatively underground artists. The festival sold out more than a month before it happened indicating that the festival was a success before it even happened at least on that score but also the planning of not just the shows but the amenities and promotion of the event and how the organizers of Blucifer Fest have thought about so many aspects of the event and put together shows leading up to the show with aims of highlighting the local scene throughout the year. Other festivals take note and not just those in Denver.
Listen to our interview with Gillian Pasley and Mike Young on Bandcamp and for more information about the festival please visit bluciferfest.com. The festival runs from July 23-26, 2026 and is currently sold out but you might be able to find a ticket.
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