Can’t Decide Which Colorado Music Festivals To Visit This Summer? Start Here

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Photo: UMS 2015 Crowd and stage
The outdoor Main Stage at the UMS.

For a lot of music fans, summer in Colorado means nights and weekends packed with live performances.

Colorado’s 2016 summer music calendar includes new festivals in the mountains, like Vertex Festival in Buena Vista and Divide Music Festival in Winter Park.

Project Pabst, a popular festival founded in Portland, Ore., comes to Denver this weekend and features Colorado favorites Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats.

And the Underground Music Showcase features hundreds of bands performing in venues along South Broadway in Denver.

And then there are the upcoming concerts at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Concerts on tap for the legendary venue this summer include The Flaming Lips with the Colorado Symphony; Bob Dylan and Mavis Staples; and The Avett Brothers with Dinosaur Jr. frontman J Mascis.

Rolling Stone contributor Steve Knopper and OpenAir’s Alisha Sweeney visited Colorado Matters to offer their picks.

Check out OpenAir’s 2016 summer music festival guide for more on the most promising live events in the coming months.