Sharing Fort Collins Talent Across the Nation

By: Amy Schakel
As of this last weekend of September, five of the best live Fort Collins bands  have ventured far and wide to team up with different cities’ best local bands: The Lindsey O’Brien Band went to Boise, Fierce Bad Rabbit traveled to Lafayette, Common Anomaly to Memphis, Post Paradise visited Milwaukee, and Wire Faces appeared in Portland.
Now, in a unique exchange program, the musicians that the Fort Collins bands teamed up with are coming here to show us what they’ve got.
This has been made possible thanks to SpokesBUZZ and their program, BandSwap. BandSwap is a musical and cultural alliance among six like-minded cities combining the best of grassroots celebration, cross promotion, creative interconnectivity and most of all, the unrivaled experience of live music.
Dani Grant, founder of SpokesBUZZ, explains, “The idea is to put together a trifecta to catapult these bands forward. First, we offer every band an anchor city hundreds or thousands of miles away, from which they can start to book their tours.” When bands arrive in the new market, they have eager and established fan bases and partner bands waiting with open arms.
Each city that was chosen as an exchange destination has something similar to Fort Collins. As Grant puts it, “Fort Collins lifestyle is built around the beauty of our surroundings, like Boise. Whether it’s our love of microbrews and Milwaukee’s beer culture, which fueled America’s early century boom, or the pride of being a great little town with tons to offer like Portland, [we share] a key aspect of social fabric and live music of each partner city.”
On October 4th through the 7th we will be introduced to New Transit from Boise, FIGHTS from Lafayette, The Soul Thieves from Memphis, Herman Astro from Milwaukee and Don of Division Street from Portland. Each will be performing with their respective exchange bands, and are eager to show Fort Collins what they have to offer.
The schedule:
Thursday, October 4th: Common Anomaly with The Soul Thieves and members of Trichome, Hodi’s, 6p.m., $5
Friday, October 5th: Post Paradise with Herman Astro and Wire Faces with Don of Division Street, Hodi’s, 6p.m., $5
Saturday, October 6th: Fierce Bad Rabbit and White Water Ramble with FIGHTS, Aggie, 8p.m., $10
Sunday, October 7th: Lindsey O’Brien Band and Constitution with New Transit at Avo’s, 1p.m. – 5p.m., $5
A $10 wristband for all 4 shows is also available for purchase at the venues or via SpokesBuzz.org