"Where's your anger?" screams a teenage clown into a microphone at a skatepark while a collective of art-punks destroys a ballroom calling for the end of borders. Drag queens dance on a rooftop in a spray of dollar bills. While America stumbles in the darkness, its artists grope for the light switch at
@treefortfest in Boise, Idaho.
The music and culture festival that takes place in one of the fastest-growing cities in the US – a gasp of blue in an overwhelmingly red state — has quietly become one of the most vital creative gatherings in the country. With more than 500 bands, 50 venues and 20,000 daily attendees, the event fosters a spirit that couldn't exist anywhere else. The festival was founded in 2012 by Lori Shandro following the sudden loss of her husband, choosing to transmute grief into a lasting cultural legacy. Curator Eric Gilbert — musician, DJ (and a Butthole Surfers cover band member this year) — has shaped its identity ever since, championing homegrown talent from Boise's teenagers to its historic Basque community.
Each 'Fort' excavates a subculture: Filmfort, Storyfort, Dragfort, Skatefort. Local businesses paint their windows with murals while 800 volunteers keep the city humming and Boise's small-town curse of mutual familiarity becomes its most potent creative weapon.
"It's a good time to be in this city," says Mishap Records founder
@shadrach_city . "The investment in the arts is multi-generational. You've got people of all different ages making fucking awesome music here."
Underground heroes
@johngorbus.band open Thursday evening at the Shrine Ballroom, amidst rows of computer monitors scrawled with "you will live and die for your shareholders, you are easily replaceable." "Borders are wounds upon the world," announces bandmember Ben Chappell. Their violence is always tempered with extraordinary vulnerability — tears are shed, a door stands at the end of the floor, and in their final act the band dissolves the line between artist and audience entirely.
Treefort ends, as it always does, in a mass embrace.
📸
@jackson_ducasse
🖊️
@soapyleighwater 
