From Frozen to Pharrell: Denver’s Mile High Freedom Band
Back in 1984, a group of local musicians had an idea: let’s get together with other folks like us and make some music. Like flies to honey, the Mile High Freedom Band (MHFB) formed with like-minded LGBT Denverites who wanted to impart some community visibility inside that 1, 2, 3, 4!
MHFB is one of the founding bands of the national organization Lesbian and Gay Band Association and now, in its 30th season, they’re still pumped to rock the park for anyone down to boogie.
“The band wasn’t started to be an overt political organization,” trumpet player Clark Vander Broek tells Out Front. “The intent was to provide visibility to the LGBT community through music and community participation.”
It took all but a year for the band to hit some high notes.
“The first performance of the Mile High Freedom Band as an openly LGBT organization was in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1984. As you can imagine, it was a pretty bold move at the time and was met with quite a bit of publicity — much of it negative,” he says. “We’ve made an appearance every year since, from the last unit in the parade in the early years to our current standing as one of the top bands in the parade.”
“We have members of all identifications,” he says proudly. “Gay, lesbian, straight, transgender, and allies. We even have a couple of parents who play along with their children — a straight mom and her lesbian daughter, and a father who attended pride with his family and since joined the band with his daughter.”
So what’s the band playing at the park? Their show, “Melodies of Pride,” is a pop concert with sing-along numbers and familiar music from film and theater. For the Pride parade (and for the children’s parade on Saturday) the band is playing Pharrell’s “Happy” and Fun’s “Some Nights.” The line-up has a wide mix of show tunes and songs from “Frozen” to “Camelot.”
MHFB has played in all sorts of venues over the years. Locally, they play in churches and concert halls from Colorado Springs Pride to Boulder Pride. They also brought the house down at the national LGBT flag football tournament held recently in Denver.
Clark adds: “As participants in national events with the Lesbian Gay Band Association, our members have performed in the last two presidential inaugural parades; as a mass band most recently in Indianapolis, Dallas, Seattle, and Atlanta for our annual conferences; performances in support of World AIDS Day in Washington DC; and in nearly all the Gay Games including Amsterdam, Sydney, Chicago, and Cologne.”
Represent! You’ve got two chances to cut a rug to the band’s latest renditions absolutely free:
• Melodies of Pride on June 17 at 6pm at the City Park Pavilion
• Denver PrideFest on June 21 at Denver’s Civic Center Park Main Stage
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