This weekend will see Colorado’s psych-rock celebration Psych’s Peak return for it’s sixth iteration. Taking place at Green Mountain Ranch in Pine, Colorado and kicking off Thursday the 27th with a pre-party, Psych’s Peak will run through Saturday the 29th and will feature some of the best psych bands Colorado has to offer such as Bitchflower, Barbara, shadow work, RUGBURN and so many more as well as a few from out of town like Doom Gong and Hippie Death Cult. If you’ve been anywhere near the Front Range’s music scene during the last seven or so years, you’ve undoubtedly noticed how prevalent the psych scene has become. Bands such as those mentioned above but also bands like Los Toms, Horse Bitch, The Crooked Rugs, Chroma Lips have surged to the forefront of the region’s scene, tearing it apart with glee and reshaping it in their own image. Psych’s Peak seeks to celebrate this, to highlight this beautiful, raucous scene in all its glory, giving all the bands and the people that play in them a place all their own, where fans can get as weird as they want and dance and mosh their way into oblivion. It’s small, community-organized and it’s going to be a damn good time.
Denver Dive recently spoke with Psych’s Peak co-founder David O’Donnell about how the festival came together, how it wouldn’t exist without community, what it takes to throw a killer party in the woods and so much more.
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O’Donnell is not only the festival organizer but also the drummer for Ploom and one of two drummers in Los Toms. Originally from Cincinnati, he said music’s been in his life since he was a kid, recalling growing up jamming with his father and twin brother, both of whom are musicians who still play. He said his interest was first piqued by a Beatles documentary that would run on PBS, saying that watching that with his dad made him and his brother want to pick up instruments themselves. After deciding that he’d be a drummer while his brother chased the guitar, his dad bought him a “cheap drum kit, almost a toy drum kit, some cheap Japanese brand called Dixon” for Christmas when he was around 10 and “that’s really where it all started.” He and his brother still play together in Ploom, however the band is currently on hiatus as their lead singer moved to Switzerland. They will be back one day.
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Though The Beatles really started him off, O’Donnell grew up on classic rock of all sorts as well as more recent bands like The Black Keys. This carried him into early adulthood until around 2010 when he really started taking notice of psych-rock, citing Tame Impala as his “gateway drug.” He recalled attending Bonnaroo in 2013 and catching an absolutely packed Tame Impala set, his first that he’d seen, and being entranced, a whole realm of possibility now wide open to him. Soon after, he found King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Thee Osees and so many more, all of whom have influenced where he finds himself today.
The first seeds of what would become Psych’s Peak arose around 2018. O’Donnell was planning a trip to LA for a festival called Desert Days at which King Gizzard and Tame Impala would be playing. He and his brother went on Reddit to find some camping gear and “some guy replied and we traded numbers and he had a 513 area code, the Cincinnati area code.” They traded names and found out that the guy had gone to high school with their cousin. This guy would turn out to be Nate Dorlac, bassist for Los Toms. They went to the festival and hung out and became friends and started hanging out more and more as the years rolled on.
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Eventually COVID hit, greatly impacting every musician out there. Los Toms and Ploom both had just been getting going, gaining some recognition and the pandemic obviously put on a hold on their growth, forced them to get creative. One night during the summer of 2020, they took some amps and a generator out to a national forest and set up a little small, quick show which was attended by “50 or 60 people.” O’Donnell said it felt so good to play for people again so they tried it again in the fall, this time adding a few more bands, inviting a few more people. As they continued to do these small shows in the woods, O’Donnell and Dorlac had a conversation and decided to legitimize the event, turn it into an actual festival. O’Donnell said, “So, the next summer, in 2021, I looked up all the rules for what we could get away with out on the national forest. I ended up getting a permit for a non-commercial event and it had to be less than 150 people and we couldn’t make any revenue from it or anything like that. That was the first Psych’s Peak. It was just flying by the seat of our pants. I think the whole budget was 600 bucks. We borrowed a generator from our friend and we built a shitty drum riser for the drums and just put tarps down as the stage. I think there were 150 people there. But that’s where it started and we’ve been blowing it up since then. This year, we’re expecting to have around 500 people.”
Though the festival has grown, with more bands, bigger names and food trucks now featured, the team that puts the fest on is pretty much still O’Donnell and Dorlac, an incredibly impressive feat considering they both have day jobs and O’Donnell has two kids. They do it all, get the permits, recruit the bands, check safety regulations, you name it. In addition, O’Donnell’s cousins help out. Their cousin Kathleen who Dorlac went to school with serves as the Volunteer Coordinator. Her older brother is a civil engineer who designs the stages so they’re structurally sound and don’t collapse on anybody. Dorlac’s buddy Reed is a contractor who actually builds the stages. The bands playing help out as well, with O’Donnell specifically mentioning the RUGBURN guys as helping to build whatever needs building. Bitchflower frontwoman Brooke Van Buiten designs all the art for the stages. Their friend Isaac Passwater did much of the art for the festival. The Moonlight Bloom guys play every year and help run the website. It’s this deeply familial community literally putting their blood, sweat and tears into making Psych’s Peak the best it can be. “It does feel like a family which is nice,” O’Donnell said. “It’s hard to find people psychotic enough to help us.”
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This year is poised to be the biggest iteration of Psych’s Peak yet. As mentioned above, they are expecting around 500 attendees and will feature food trucks for the first time. Still, O’Donnell wants attendees to know that even though there will be food trucks, you should still come prepared. It’s a multi-day camping festival away from civilization. Bring all the necessities, food of your own, a grill, water, toiletries, anything you need to survive. O’Donnell described Psych’s Peak as “Field of Vision but way smaller and with way less cops,” referring to King Gizzard’s festival Field of Vision which was held in Buena Vista a couple of weeks ago which saw a disproportionate amount of police activity.
The lineup is incredible, a veritable who’s who of Colorado psych acts. The weekend will see sets from Bitchflower, Horse Bitch, Los Toms, shadow work, Barbara, Jesus Christ Taxi Driver, Chroma Lips, Pink Lady Monster, Moonlight Bloom, The Crooked Rugs and so many more. These bands have all been tearing their way across the Front Range, trying to make it home to Psych’s Peak. Though O’Donnell said they try to “keep the lineup as local as possible,” the festival will also feature more out of town, “national” bands than years prior, with Doom Gong and Hippie Death Cult stopping by. In addition to the new bands and the food trucks, new additions to the fest include RUGBURN hosting what they are calling “The Orgy Dome,” meant more for late night sets rather than actual orgies but only time will tell what will actually go down.
As far as philosophy or a message that Psych’s Peak is trying to get across, O’Donnell sees the festival as “a place to celebrate all the great psych bands we have in our scene. It’s another avenue to discover these artists rather than another weekend show on South Broadway.” He said he didn’t set out to “do something noble” but instead has always just wanted to “throw a killer party in the woods.” Intentional or not, Psych’s Peak is a noble endeavor, a labor of love, a shining testament to our scene’s resilience, creativity, passion, what those that have made their home within it can accomplish when they all pitch in. It’s going to be a hell of a weekend. Tickets are still on sale so don’t miss it.
Get tickets to Psych’s Peak 2026 here!
Check out the full Psych’s Peak 2026 lineup here!
All photography courtesy of Psych’s Peak.
