Going Out With a Bang: The Last Year of Underground Music Showcase

Written By Jordan Aronson

Nestled in the bars and back alleys of the Baker neighborhood, Underground Music Showcase (UMS) has been not-so-secretly rocking Denverite heads off since the year 2000. The festival celebrated its 25th anniversary with the knowledge that it would be its last this year on July 25-27, 2025. UMS was one of many festivals nationwide this year to celebrate their final year due to rising costs for security, permits, insurance, and artists. The festival made a conscious decision to announce this as the end so that fans could say goodbye. With that in mind, the Denver hipsters showed up ready to party in their overalls, tie-dye shirts, tight jorts, and floral dresses one last time.

Like the name implies, you won’t find Beyoncé or Taylor Swift on this lineup. To give you a sense of the scale, the main stage of the festival was tucked into the parking lot behind the Goodwill. The festival was largely funded by the nonprofit, Youth on Record. The Denver-based charity aims to bring creativity to children through the arts. That being said, the organizers never missed a chance to get on stage to talk about the lack of federal funding for the arts in the current political climate. In the days of streaming platforms paying their artists shockingly low amounts, this festival shone a much-needed light on local music. The weekend featured a wide array of music with punk, indie, folk, funk, and more. For this article, I chose to highlight three artists, one from each day.

Friday’s headliner introduced themselves as a rock and roll rhythm and blues band. The Nashville outfit All Them Witches was, in fact, much more than that. The frontman and lead vocalist, Charles Michael Parks Jr., started off the set with his sultry voice backed by his bass guitar. These components alone were enough to carry the band. As the guitar and drums came in, a sea of heads started rocking in sync. It was powerful, it was gloomy, and it was face-melting. Riffs so undeniably infectious that I was sure my head was just going to roll off my body. The only rest given was when the band played a few tracks off their upcoming untitled blues-focused album. All Them Witches proved to be a truly great way to kick off the beginning of the end.

Photo by @juliannaphotography on Instagram

Frankie and the Witch Fingers was a personal highlight of the showcase, and happened to be a band I had been chasing for quite a while. Starting off with their popular punk-psychedelic epic “Empire,” the booming track put the entire crowd in the mood for what was about to unfurl before them. Barely taking a breath to introduce themselves, the band then proceeded to play almost nonstop until they were told time was up. Punchy vocals were matched with striking drums and catchy guitar riffs, and there was not a single crowd member who was standing still for the duration of the set. They made every second of their 45-minute time slot count. A wild ride from start to finish, Frankie and the Witch Fingers put on an unforgettable show. 

Fidlar, clearly a fan favorite, rocked the final day of UMS. The Los Angeles-based punk band’s songs about drugs, love, and hardship cut straight to the heart for many fans. Inspired by that call to action,  the crowd created the biggest mosh pit I had ever seen. It felt like a Turnstile music video. Someone in the crowd yelled, “You sound like Blink-182!” The lead singer, Zac Carper, replied with “Sounding like Blink-182 would be the best thing ever!” During the set, the pit opened up. Like a women-only pit and a song where everyone sat down until the drop. The energy reached an all-time high near the end of the set, which left the crowd in the perfect mood for the closing headliner, Denver’s own Devotchka.

UMS was built around the pure concept of community. The love for local music is still there. You didn’t have to tell anyone there how special a festival like this is. As Devotchka’s frontman Nick Urata said, “Denver, you don’t know what you have.” When the last set of the final day concluded, the festival organizers walked proudly onto the stage, drinks in hand, like the credits roll of an SNL episode. A DJ joined them, and the crowd danced to their heart’s content throughout the rest of the night.

Some other notable bands of 2025’s Underground Music Showcase include: 

The Velveteers

Fruita Brutal

Devotchka

La Luz