MOFFAT — The Psychs Peak music festival is relocating this year to Saguache County at the industrial marijuana grow operation AREA 420 in Moffat, to be held July 14-15.

Psych-rock, or psychedelic rock is a rock music genre inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelic culture, centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporates electronic sound effects and has extended instrumental solos and improvisation.

Early examples of this genre are The Grateful Dead and The Doors. A quick listen to “White Rabbit,” from the 1967 album, “Surrealistic Pillow” by Jefferson Airplane is a classic example of psych rock. Fast forward to 2023 and the lineup at the festival will include RITMO Cascabel, Love Gang, King Crawdad, and many others.

Psychs Peak Festival was founded by Dave O'Donnell, the drummer of the Denver-based psychedelic band Ploom. O'Donnell told the Valley Courier he started the festival in 2021 as a psych rock and camping event that attracted about 150 people. Last year, the festival was in the Pike National Forest and had 300 people and 12 bands. This year the festival will have 20 bands.

Psych-rock according to O'Donnell is, "Is obviously rock music, it incorporates a lot of crazy and different ideas, it is not just straightforward boring, formulaic pop music."

Mike Biggio, one of the owners of AREA 420 told the Valley Courier, "The event has been running for the last two or three years and the space where they were going to throw the party this year was on private property and when the county came out apparently, they discovered he had done a lot of building without permits so they ended up shutting the poor guy down. They were looking for a new place, so we stepped up."

Initially, the festival for this year was planned on private property near Canon City.

About 500 people are expected to attend the festival this year according to Biggio. Last year, the Seven Peaks Music Festival, also in Saguache County, a production of the global music promotion firm Live Nation, attracted about 12,000 attendees. Recently, Seven Peaks founder and musician Dierks Bentley announced that festival will not be returning to Saguache County. In an interview with the Colorado Sun Bentley said, "We didn't make any money. We lost millions of dollars," regarding the Seven Peaks festival.

For the festival this year, O'Donnell said there will be 20 bands, six on Friday and 14 on Saturday with music starting at about 5 p.m. on Friday. The festival website includes over 25 music tracks from the lineup this year and a link to “millions more on Spotify.” O’Donnell said the festival is a DIY [do it yourself] production that he is promoting and not a production of a multinational production company. He encourages people not familiar with the music to come and check out the festival.

The website of Psychs Peak describes the event as a camping music festival that will offer, “perception-altering sounds of psych-rock with the majestic scenery of Colorado's mountains, all with a friendly chill vibe.”

"It is local Colorado music,” added Biggio. Most of the bands are Colorado-based said O'Donnell who added, “You are supporting local artists, we're not a big festival that is run by Live Nation.”

Tickets for the festival are $32 each for a pack of 10 tickets at $320 or $40 for a single ticket. Ticket prices increase on July 1. Camping is available from July 14-16, no dogs, no fires. Visit psychs-peak.com, for more information.