I went to Snowball Music Festival last weekend for the third time in the last three years. This year was considerably different than the other two years. The appeal of Snowball in the past was that it was a music festival in the beautiful Rocky Mountains. Last year the festival was at Winter Park, CO, and the year before it was outside of Vail, CO. This year, however, the festival was in Denver, CO, in the parking lot outside of Sports Authority Field. On top of that, the festival took place a month later than it had in the previous year, which took away the winter element of the festival. So going into the festival, I knew it was going to be different, and I was not sure what to expect. What I did know was that there was some big names like Pretty Lights, Griz, Trippy Turtle, MK, and Mimosa were going to be there. Not going because I was disappointed that the location was not in the mountains would have been stupid, so I got tickets and went.

When I arrived down at the venue, I noticed things that I liked, and things that I didn't. I thought it was dope that the stadium was in the background of the main stage, and I liked that all the stages were close to each other. Still, the venue could not even come close in comparison to the scenery of being in the mountains, which bothered me a bit over the weekend. In the past there had been snow on the ground, and it was cold out. The crowd was decked out in awesome winter apparel, and not seeing that this year took away a very cool element of the festival. Even though the festival lacked a lot of its appeal that it had in the past, it still managed to have a consistent flow of good music to see throughout the day.

My weekend started with a dope set from GTA, followed by EARL Sweatshirt, Mimosa, and Justin Jay. EARL came out on stage talking about how he was not used to preforming at a mostly electronic music festival. Asked the crowd to get down with him if they were down with rap music. The crowd was super into his performance, and EARL put on a great show. Mimosa puts on an awesome show every time I see him, and his performance at Snowball was no different. The crowd was loving the set, and Mimosa absolutely killed it. I finished my first day at Snowball in the Heat Tent, which only had house music during the entire festival. I saw Justin Jay for the first time, without hearing his music before and knowing nothing about him. He was absolutely fantastic, and I did a lot of dancing throughout his entire set.

On day two of the festival I saw Wave Racer, Caked Up, Trippy Turtle, Pretty Lights, and MK. Wave Racer was one of the artists in which I was really looking forward to seeing. I really like all the music he has put out in the past year, and I knew it was going to be an awesome show. It was exactly that, and Wave Racer's set was one of my favorites of the festival. Caked Up played an awesome set as well following Wave Racer. Oscar Wylde and Vegas Banger of Caked Up really get down on stage, and know how to get a crowd into their show. Trippy Turtle was another artist who I was really looking forward to because I follow his music pretty closely, and had never seen him in concert before. He was fantastic, and I loved every second of his show. Trippy Turtle's music is so dope, and his show was equally as good as his music. I caught the beginning of Pretty Lights' set, but I had seen his show four times in the past year. Even though I am a big fan of his music, MK was playing during his set. MK was an artist in which I had never seen before and had wanted to if given the chance. I made the decision to dip out of Pretty Lights' early, and catch MK. In the end, I believe I made the right decision because MK put on the best set that I saw all weekend. The crowd was not very big since MK's set was during Pretty Lights', but that made it better in my opinion. All the people in the crowd were there because they were either fans of MK or fans of house music. I had such a good time during his set, and I will definitely be at his show the next time he is in Colorado.

On the third and final day of the festival I saw What so Not, Clockwork, Busta Rhymes, PLM Party, and Griz. After seeing What so Not in Las Vegas two weeks before, I was super stoked to see him again down in Denver. Both times I saw What so Not it was only Emoh, but Flume was not there. This did not matter much because both sets I saw were so dope, and super fun. Clockwork killed it during his set, and was a good transition into Busta Rhymes. I was somewhat disappointed in Busta's set, mostly because I was expecting him to play his older tracks. He seemed to me like he was too drunk and high because of all the craziness that he was saying on stage. So I dipped out of his set, and went to the PLM Party. The PLM Party was a combination of artists on the Pretty Lights Music label on stage together. This set was so awesome, and I was really happy that I left Busta Rhymes' set to go see them. They played a bunch of different tracks made by artists the PLM label, but in really sick different ways. I would love to see them again in that fashion if they ever do a show like that again. Griz closed out the festival playing the best set that I have ever seen him put on. Griz is such a big name out in Colorado, and he always plays his best when he is playing here. I have seen him around Boulder a lot over the past year, and from personal accounts I have to say that he's a super nice guy. Griz's shows are always a good time, and if you have not seen one and are a fan of his music, you have to go to one!

All in all, I had an awesome time at Snowball Music Festival. It was disappointing that it was in Denver and not the mountains this year, but the music I saw made up for that. I really do hope that Snowball returns next year, but hopefully it will be back up in the mountains. I'm a supporter of having a winter music festival out in Colorado, and I think they are successful when they have them. The music scene out here for pretty much every genre of music is huge. That makes for a large crowd for a variety of music, so it would be nice to see Snowball add more styles of music into their line-up like they had in the past. So if you are in Colorado anytime soon, try to see a show somewhere, because there is always great live music out here, especially with Red Rocks season approaching!