Artists set to stand and deliver at last Edge Fest ever

CHEYENNE — The 10th and final Edge Fest returns to Cheyenne on Aug. 24.

It was announced back in March by Edge Fest founder Dave Teubner that Wyoming’s largest free music festival was coming to a close after 10 years.

The lineup of artists this year was announced in June and consists of The Patti Fiasco, Paul Russell, Peter Raffoul and headliner Bishop Briggs.

Previous artists that have performed at past Edge Fests include Tai Verdes, Tones and I, Devon Cole and COIN, just to name a few. This is only the second year they have a lineup of four artists.

The first Edge Fest, in 2014, was held in the Dinneen Building with Portland singer-songwriter Tyler Stenson. They moved around downtown every year until they got too big, which is why they’ve been holding it in Civic Commons Park since 2019.

Briggs performed at Edge Fest in 2018 and is the reason the outdoor concert blew up. Back in June, Teubner told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle that before Briggs performed, their biggest crowd was maybe 500 people, which quickly grew to 2,500 people in the years following.

As stated in a WTE article back in June, Teubner said that the reason they were ending Edge Fest after 10 years was because it was getting too expensive to maintain, as well as taking up valuable time and resources from the community.

“We wanted to remember why we started. We wanted to keep it free as a gift back to the community ... but it’s just become a little too expensive. It’s been a powerful decade of change for the community and I have so much love for the Warehouse 21 team … also, I have deep love and gratitude to all of our sponsors and volunteers. This thing only goes on because of them.”

The festival will not only feature live artists for free, but have a selection of local merch, art vendors and food trucks. And although this is their final year, a pop-up on the official Edge Fest website teases that there’s still “more to come (and maybe some plans for the future).”

The event begins at 4:30 p.m. with announcements before the performers come on stage. Then The Patti Fiasco will perform at 5:25 p.m., Peter Raffoul will perform afterward at 6:20 p.m., Paul Russel at 7:15 p.m., and then Bishop Briggs comes on at 8:30 p.m.

Here’s some background on the artists:

Artist One: The Patti Fiasco

Patti Fiasco

The Patti Fiasco lead singer Alysia Kraft.

The Patti Fiasco is a three-member band with frontwoman Alysia Kraft manning the ship alongside guitarist Dee Tyler and electrified dobro player Ansel Foxley. Their music can be described as soulful rock and roll with “a heavy dose of rockabilly blues and ballad.” They fuse a hard-rock swagger with their Wyoming roots.

Even though the band is based in Fort Collins, Colorado, it was conceived at a Wyoming open mic in 2009, where they quickly earned wide critical acclaim and a devout fanbase in the West. After the open mic, the band got to work making music together. Their first EP came out in March 2010 and featured five songs. After that, they came out with their single “Haunts” before releasing their debut album, “The Patti Fiasco,” in 2011.

From 2011 to 2016, the band released two more albums, “Small Town Lights” (2013) and “Saved by Rock and Roll” (2016) before taking a break from making music. “Small Town Lights” garnered multiple accolades, including Wyoming Public Radio’s Best Regional Album award and FoCoMA’s Best Album award.

In 2017, the band won a nationwide contest sponsored by Live Nation and Bon Jovi’s management to open for the rock icon at The Pepsi Center in March 2018. The threesome got to perform in front of a sold-out stadium that night.

The band took a break from making new music together to try solo pursuits after their album “Saved By Rock and Roll” in 2016, which was dubbed Scene Magazine’s Album of the Year that year.

However, the bandmates still remained close. In March 2022, to celebrate 12 years together as a band, The Patti Fiasco performed with the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra at the Historic Lincoln Theatre.

And in 2023, Kraft won the Colorado Sound Award for Most Outstanding Live Performer. Throughout their career, they’ve shared a stage with legends like Bon Jovi and Blondie as well as renowned acts like Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite.

The band’s most recent singles both came out this past year. The latest is “Love Letter,” which serves as a literal love letter to the LGBTQ+ community.

Fun fact: Member Ansel Foxley plays the dobro, a type of resonator guitar that is often associated with country and bluegrass music. It’s a modified version of the classical guitar, but it’s played with the back of the instrument resting on the player’s lap.

Notable tracks: “Wyoming is for Lovers” (2011), “Small Town Lights” (2013), “Nobody’s Girl” (2011).

Artist Two: Peter Raffoul

Peter Raffoul

Peter Raffoul

As a self-described maker of melancholy music, Raffoul embraces a gift for transforming pain into beauty.

The Nashville-based singer/songwriter likes to write his songs with a stream-of-consciousness approach. He’s the product of a highly musical family and has been surrounded by music his whole life. His father, Jody, played in rock bands for over three decades, and his brother, Billy, is a singer/songwriter signed to Interscope Records.

Raffoul grew up loving bands like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, and finally began exploring his own musical journey at 17, when he took up piano for the first time. Shortly after, he added guitar to his repertoire and created the song “Maybe I Do” which would eventually be on his first EP, “Songs from House In Blue” (2022).

Raffoul’s most recent single is from this year called “Body Bag,” and he currently has 10 singles and one EP out.

Fun fact: Raffoul’s brother, Billy, performed at Edge Fest in 2019.

* Notable tracks: “Bad For Me” (2022), “Fked Up Together” (2022), “Cigarette Holes” (2022).

Artist Three: Paul Russell

Paul Russell

Paul Russell

Russell is an American rapper based in Los Angeles. He originally grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta and went to high school in Texas.

While attending college at Cornell University in New York for industrial relations, Russell started making music on the side under the name of ‘Paulitics’ while working as a tech consultant. After posting some music on SoundCloud, he was approached by Rusland, the co-founder and owner of Christian hip-hop label King Dreams Entertainment (KDE). KDE would eventually become his record label in 2018. Shortly after signing on with KDE, Russell released his first commercial single, “Meet Me Outside” and would later release a joint album with Rusland called “Via Text.”

It wasn’t until March 2019 that Russell would debut his solo album, “One in a Dry Season.” From 2019 to 2023, he released music through the independent label Boom Records.

His single “Lil Boo Thang” peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 after trending like wildfire online and on TikTok. Because of the massive success of “Lil Boo Thang,” in June 2023, Russell got signed by Arista Records and released the song as a commercial single for the label. He also got the chance to make live guest appearances at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and on “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” in the following months.

To date, Russell has 33 singles and two albums.

This past year, Russell was announced as the opening act for “All About that Bass” singer Meghan Trainor on The Timeless Tour. Most recently, Russell released a collaboration in July with Trainor, titled “Slippin’.”

Fun fact: Russell’s sister, Caress Alon, catfished as him on Netflix’s sixth season of “The Circle” this year.

Notable tracks: “Lil Boo Thang” (2023), “Say Cheese” (2024), “Ms. Poli Sci” (2022).

Headliner: Bishop Briggs

Bishop Briggs

Bishop Briggs will headline the 10th and final Edge Fest music festival on Aug. 24 at Cheyenne’s Civic Commons Park.

Briggs is a London-born artist who’s been all over the world. She grew up in both Japan and Hong Kong, and moved to Los Angeles days after graduating high school.

She spent any free time she had performing at various venues and was eventually discovered in a small hole-in-the-wall place by a former A&R rep. Briggs strives to blend folk, pop and electronic music to make a unique sound to her music, but prides herself on being an “emo kid” at heart.

In 2016, she released her debut single, “Wild Horses,” which reached No. 1 on Spotify’s Global Viral 50 charts, with airplay on Sirius XM’s Alt Nation, Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 Show, and a prized spot in Acura’s 2016 TLX commercial.

Her single “River,” also released in 2016, became an RIAA-certified platinum single and seemingly overnight rose to No. 3 on the Alternative chart with over 680 million global streams. The song also earned her a No. 2 spot on Spotify’s global viral chart and has more than 296 million views on YouTube. “River” has been featured in multiple commercials and during NFL Playoffs. She also was able to perform the hit single on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

Since her debut album “Church of Scars” released in 2019, Briggs has opened for Coldplay, Kaleo, alt-J and Bleachers. To date, she has about 19 singles, not including multiple remixes made of her hit songs, featured on multiple soundtracks including the “Fifty Shades Freed” soundtrack, and has one (official) EP and two albums.

Fun fact: Briggs was on season nine of “The Masked Singer” in 2023 and won against second-place winner David Archuleta. Her winning song was “Welcome to the Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance.

Notable tracks: “River” (2016), “White Flag” (2018), “Never Tear Us Apart” from the “Fifty Shades Freed” soundtrack (2018).