UM… Let’s Talk About future.exboyfriend
Article written and photos by Sila Sungur
The Underground Music Showcase is a music festival held in Denver, Colorado on the last weekend of July. This year the dates fell from Friday, July 28th to Sunday, July 30th. This festival highlights many up-and-coming/underground bands and is an ode to Denver’s close-knit music scene. They have over 10,000 attendees and through a combination of three main stages, four concert venues, and 9 restaurants with live performances, The UMS is able to host 150 bands throughout the weekend. Some of these artists include Jamila Woods, Emmit Fenn, Crumb, DEHD, Spill Tab, and N3ptune. The festival also caters to a number of genres, the primary genre hosted is pop, but festival attendees can also find country, EDM, indie, and alternative bands across the many stages.
future.exboyfriend was the second and main band I came to watch perform. The band is from Salt Lake City, Utah, and consists of Tyler Harris, Isaac Paul, Josh Arena, and Ian Kirby. All four band members are producers, which leads to a wide range of creative freedom within their music making it more inclusive. Their most recent release was their self-titled album, “FXB,” which came out on April 20th of this year. The album contains thirteen songs that push the boundaries of producing and make for very unique tracks and experiences.
future.exboyfriend took the HQ stage on Friday, July 28th around 9:00 pm, and did an incredible job at closing out the first night of the festival. They started their set with “High at the Gym,” which is the second track off of their self-titled album. The song has a heavy alternative intro, which captured the audience's attention, and the song itself was very fitting for a Denver crowd. Many of the concertgoers instantly fell in love with the band and the energy was incredibly high. Not only was the band able to grab the audience’s attention with their first song, but as the set went on they were able to keep the crowd entertained and had all of the attendees dancing through the set. The passion that the four members had for their fans was displayed across their faces as the dancefloor began to shake from the crowd.
The band closed out their performance with the final song off their album, “Self Sabotage.” The song has a more electronic aspect to it, which made it very danceable and added more liveliness to the show’s ending, leading it to stay memorable. A music video has also been released with VEVO for “Self Sabotage”. Many comments under the video noted that the song and the video gave off 90’s vibes and that the music video complimented the song very well.
Throughout future.ex-boyfriend’s 45-minute set, not once was there a dull moment either on stage or in the crowd. They managed to make use of every second of their set time by performing and interacting with the audience. During the show, I met a lady who had never heard of them, and by the end of the show she had already followed them and saved many of their songs. The UMS is known for hosting underground bands and helping people discover new bands they’ll love which is exactly what the festival did for the audience of FXB.
Want to check out future.exboyfriend yourself? Check below!
