By Tim Van Schmidt

The NewWestFest is giving me nightmares. More specifically, the great free music festival that goes with NewWestFest, Bohemian Nights, is giving me nightmares. This has become an annual event in Fort Collins that has become so well defined and refined, so well done, it’s frightening to think of what life would be like without it. Here’s my dreadful vision: the streets would be silent, the people’s spirits dampened.

OK, maybe life itself wouldn’t stop, but things would be a lot duller in Fort Collins without Bohemian Nights.

What’s so great about Bohemian Nights? Well, I guess you could call it the premiere party for Northern Colorado, a city festival deluxe. The NewWestFest itself is a busy and rich experience itself- with food, craft and other vendors, information booths and just about every size, shape and type of human being you may want- or even not want- to see walking the streets all around Old Town. NewWestFest has been going on a long time on its own and is well established as a good time for the whole family.

But then you add in Bohemian Nights. This is a multi-stage free music festival sponsored by the Fort Collins-based Bohemian Foundation that fits NewWestFest like a glove- using the Old Town Square stage and setting up others on Walnut, Mountain and in Library Park, to showcase live music of every variety. It’s not just any music, though; it’s Colorado music. A major feature of Bohemian Nights is that the majority of the acts are regional picks. And every one of them, on the whole, are excellent, whether a young, raging rock band, a thumping funk band, bluegrass, reggae, pounding blues or synched in jazz. It’s all great in its own way and people in Fort Collins are of a mind to get out and dig it.

There’s a lot to appreciate about Bohemian Nights, and that includes the out-of-town headliners they have been bringing in since the whole thing began in 2005. This year included Melissa Etheridge, playing a solo show, and the great, energetic LA band Ozomatli. Other years have included Taj Mahal, Los Lobos, the B52s, Bruce Hornsby and much more. That’s great and the crowds do pack Mountain Avenue for the big names- so much so, Bohemian Nights has taken to broadcasting the Saturday headliner on a screen in Library Park. The production is top notch, dealing with little bumps in the road like weather with efficiency, and the information about the bands and festival was plentiful.

Before Bohemian Nights, it should be noted, live music had already been a strong element of the NewWestFest. Local bands had played the local stages during the festival for years and the Stryker-Short Foundation had sponsored free shows on Linden Street that featured great touring bands- from Kansas and the subdudes to Dr. John, the Cowboy Junkies and Gatemouth Brown. The good times have been flowing pretty continuously at NewWestFest for a long time.

But the Bohemian Nights organization has turned all this into an art. This year’s schedule was timed so that every 15 minutes, new music was starting somewhere. Now that’s just delicious for an avid live music fan. In fact, it’s kind of like running a marathon. I managed to see about 30 of the 50 performers over the weekend and I was really hoofing it most of the time.

I saw something to admire about most of the acts I caught. But there were some stand out moments, for sure. Those included getting thoroughly rocked by High Voltage, getting uplifted by the barroom blues of Paul Soderman, even in the rain, and joining the hometown crowd at the great opening evening show by the 3 Twins and many musical friends in Old Town Square. That was pure Fort Collins fun if there ever was any.

Other highlights included Angie Stevens’ great set before Melissa Etheridge- I like her a lot and excuse me if I really preferred her set over Etheridge’s, although Melissa did just fine herself. In fact, Etheridge said some really poignant things during her set, including reminding the audience how lucky they were to have this music festival in their town. She even turned it into a little rhyme- “You will thrive, if you keep your music alive.” Ozomatli concurred by turning in a rousing set on Sunday to close out the weekend.

I also got to become acquainted with some killer acts I had never seen before- including the rough and tumble Informants, the dynamic Filthy Children, and acoustic-based acts like Finders and Youngberg and singer Megan Burtt. I enjoyed the progressive jazz of the Aakash Mittal Quartet and the sassiness of Dressy Bessy. It was great to hear Lindsey O’Brien’s band rock and to relax to the light jazz of the Gypsy Swing Revue. Say, it seems I’m mentioning a lot of what I saw as highlights- well, there you go.

So that’s where my nightmares are coming from- after thoroughly enjoying Bohemian Nights at NewWestFest once again in 2009, I start worrying- how long can this good fortune last? Will Bohemian Nights shut down because of the bad economy or bad advice? Will the music be silenced at NewWestFest now that it’s going REALLY strong? Wake me up before that nightmare comes true. Somebody bring me some water. It’s just too horrible to think about losing a community thing as precious- and fun- as Bohemian Nights.