Sabroso Craft Beer, Taco & Music Festival – April 28th – Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre

The Scene: They say April showers bring May flowers. This is definitely true in Colorado. This year’s Sabroso Craft Beer, Taco & Music Festival, headlined by The Offspring fell on April 28th. The day filled with craft beer, tasty tacos, Lucha Libre style wrestling, and live music started at 73 degrees – shorts and flip flop weather in Denver – and by the end of the show the crowd saw wind, rain, and a 32 degree drop in temperature. All the Merch stands were sold-out of hoodies, the crowd was snapping up whatever was available. They didn’t even care if they like the band printed on the sweatshirt, as long as it fit, they just wanted to stay warm enough to make it through to the headliner.

Craft Beer:  The day started at 1:00, with more than 25 breweries and over 100 beers.  I was definitely on my way to 40oz to freedom.  Unfortunately my plastic sample cup only held 2oz, so I was going to have to stand in line 20 times.  So many great breweries and beer styles to choose from.  My top three offerings of the day came from Renegade, Black Sky, and of course Ska Brewing.  David Thibodeau is the Co-Founder and President of Ska Brewing. We recently talked and he shared with me why being involved in last weekend’s Sabroso Festival and the upcoming Bash Music & Craft Beer Festival is important to Ska Brewing.  Dave said, “The clear tie-in is obviously our love of music and beer, both of which are the dual components of the two festivals. Ska Brewery is fortunate to migrate toward those shared interests, and vice versa, because of this, Ska has become pretty good friends with Cameron Collins, who promotes both of those fests. When we first began home brewing years ago, these bands provided the soundtrack to our Brew days, and even today, here at the brewery, we really can’t have one without the other…they’re both fantastic social lubricants. You hear wineries talk about ‘terroir,’ the accumulation of all the environmental factors that contribute to the character of wine…well this is music for us. I wholeheartedly believe that if we didn’t listen to music as passionately as we brew, the end result would be a beer that taste different from what we have here as Ska.”

Tacos:  Next up, a plethora tacos served out of a dozen different food trucks.  More lines, but again I did not mind waiting.  After all there are three ways to my heart, buy me tacos, make me tacos, or be tacos!  Anyway not every line comes with a wrestling ring!  They had everything, grilled meats, cilantro & onions, Gringo Bandito hot sauce stations, colorful masks, and “high-flying” wrestling maneuvers.  Did I mention there were tacos?

Music:  All six of the day’s bands had been around for twenty-plus years.  I saw most of these bands when I was younger in much smaller venues.  Music venues that were converted movie theaters and churches, or barrooms where you stuck to the floor.  Back when beer came in bottles or cans, and subsequently the bands often played on a stage behind a chain link fence.  Although the sound was great, the expansive venues seating that separated the pit from the lawn seating took away the intimacy and connection I had felt with all these bands in the past.  I mean, the bands I have grown older, but who sits politely in their seat as to not obstruct the view of the person behind them.  This is Punk Rock! You need to get up and move, giving energy back to the band on stage, it is reciprocal relationship.  

First up was the band that competes with the Supersuckers for the best live band out there, The Dwarves.  Always happy to offend, they played a hard and fast set of songs about sex, violence, vandalism, and villainy.  The set included “Sluts of the USA,” “Free Cocaine,” and “Everybodies Girl.”  Strung Out kept things going, playing Metal tinged, technical Punk with songs like “To Close to See’” and “Rats in the Walls.” 

Next up was Black Flag.  Taking the stage was the 2019 reformed lineup consisting of founder and guitarist Gregg Ginn, Mike Vallely vocals, new drummer Isaias Gil, and Tyler Smith on bass.  This was not Flag who features more former Black Flag members than Black Flag.  I’m not looking to debate which band is the true Black Flag as I enjoyed this lineup’s renditions of “Black Coffee,” “Rise Above,” and a cover of Richard Berry’s “Louie Louie.” One of my favorite bands, the Vandals, kept things going.  Straight out of Orange County no band is more fun or rocks so hard.  The antics and crazy outfits of guitarist Warren Fitzgerald along with the witty lyrics and delivery of singer Dave Quackenbush never fail to please with songs like “My Girlfriend’s Dead,” “Live Fast Diarrhea,” and “Urban Struggle.” 

Bad Religion took the stage as the sun set.  Their set got everybody’s blood pumping again, and a good thing because it was just starting to get cold and the rain was drizzling.  Along with staples like “American Jesus,” and “Fuck You,” they played two songs, “My Sanity,” and “Do the Paranoid Style,” off the upcoming release Age of Unreason. 

Headliners the Offspring took the stage just before 10:00.  By this time the crowd had on rain ponchos, and plastic bags with arm and head holes torn in them to fight off the rain, but no one was leaving as this was the band most people had come to see.  They opened up the set with a blistering rendition of “Americana” to get the pit swirling.  The 15 song set also included “Come Out and Play,”  “Walla Walla,” and a cover of AC-DC’s “Whole Lotta Rosie.”  Despite the cold, the band came back out for a two song encore that included “You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid,” and “Self Esteem.”