In a highly literal piece of event programming, Longmont has booked the band behind the 1994 alternative hit “Cold Beverage” to headline a summer park festival surrounded by local alcohol vendors serving cold beverages.
The city’s new Independence Weekend celebration runs Friday and Saturday. The revised two-day format replaces the nearly 30-year run of Rhythm on the River festival, which took over Roger’s Grove every July for decades until it shifted to Roosevelt Park in the fall, rebranded as Rhythm at Roosevelt for a few years. The Rhythm festivals bowed out of Longmont with the last iteration of Rhythm at Roosevelt in September of 2025.
With the new festival, city officials expanded the holiday lineup to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary and Colorado’s 150th anniversary. To kick off the Independence Weekend, Longmont’s inaugural Backyard Concert on Friday night was able to reel in a sizeable national act for a free show with G. Love & Special Sauce .
Formed in Philadelphia in 1993, the headlining trio consists of vocalist and guitarist Garrett Dutton, known as G. Love, drummer Chuck Treece and bassist Jim Prescott. The band established its footprint with a fusion of acoustic blues, funk and alternative hip-hop beats, a style frequently categorized as slacker blues. Following the band’s 1994 self-titled debut album on Epic Records, the group spent three decades touring major festival circuits, including Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, and earned a Grammy nomination for the 2020 album, “The Juice.”…