Though Nevada’s northeastern region remains one of the West’s best kept secrets, the towns of McGill and nearby Ely pull an ace out of the sleeve with the new Schellraiser Music Festival. The festival’s name is adopted from the neighboring Schell Creek mountain range and imbues its mission to fundraise for a local cause. This year: the Nevada Northern Railway’s work to restore locomotives and expand the historic rail’s footprint.
The Superbloom Music Festival finally debuted at Sand Hallow’s Rock Bowl this past weekend! The National Parks’ dream was to “curate a festival experience and create a special event to celebrate the release of our new album Wildflower”. But due to the unfortunate circumstances of the pandemic in 2020, the festival was canceled. Since then, restrictions have lessened and Superbloom was ready to party at the absolutely beautiful OC Tanner Amphitheater right outside of Zion National Park. Utah’s flash foods, unfortunately, had different plans and a major flash flood hit the OC Tanner Amphitheater and sustained major damages. Thankfully Superbloom was determined to have their dreams come true and they were able to find the music fest a beautiful new home at the Rock Bowl at Sand Hollow Resort in Hurricane, Utah!
Back in 2010 Corey Fox, owner of Velour Live Music Gallery and singer-songwriter, Joshua James put together the first Fork Fest. It’s an event that is still talked about to this day. Now in 2019, the Harrington Center for the Arts got involved and brought back this amazing festival that spotlights the best local talent in Utah.
Photo By: Kevin Rolfe
This event could easily, and perhaps should be called Velour Fest because these bands have all graced the stage at one point or another of the iconic Utah County venue and champion for musicians in the area. There were 28 bands on the lineup, each of them at varying stages of their musical career. I’ve seen local music all over this great nation of ours. I’m continually in awe of the talent pool here in Utah. If you heard that any one of these bands were signed (whatever that means nowadays) and were heading on a nationwide headlining tour you wouldn’t be surprised. There is not only an embarrassment of riches when it comes to music talent here in Utah, but there is real professionalism in their approach to their music. Many of them started at an open mic night or a battle of the bands. But when they stepped on to one of the three Fork Fest stages they looked like seasoned veterans.
