Why 150 bands are converging on this tiny Arizona town for a free music festival

The streets of Bisbee are about to be bustling with music fans making their way from stage to stage when the Sidepony Express Music Festival returns to the historic mining town in the hills of Cochise County on Nov. 7-9.

This year's event was expected to feature no fewer than 500 free performances by 150 acts across 34 stages. Most acts will play multiple engagements over the course of the three-day festival, in a town whose population dipped below 5,000 in 2020 — a town whose total area is 5.2 square miles.

It's unlike anything you've ever seen — unless, of course, you've been to Bisbee to experience the festival yourself.

Bisbee 'feels like a magical place' when Sidepony takes over

Every musician who spoke to The Arizona Republic for this article inevitably reached for the same word in an attempt to explain what keeps them coming back to Bisbee to play for the contents of a tip jar, covering their own expenses.

That word was "magical."

Dean Cheney is the guitar-slinging frontman for a rockabilly trio out of Phoenix called the Joeys, who became an overnight sensation in their first year at the festival in 2023.

"For us, it's a combination of how much we love Bisbee and the people that we've met there," Cheney says.

"Every time we go there, it feels like a magical place. It's very much the aesthetic and vibe that we like. And it's relaxing, even though the festival itself can be kind of hectic, in some ways. The people there just really love live music. They don't care what that live music is. They're just gonna listen and have a good time with it, you know?"

Sidepony is 'kind of like rock 'n' roll summer camp' for bands

Faith Kelly and Caswyn Moon, who perform as A Couple of Wanderers, have traveled from the Catskills twice to take part in the festival, booking tours around it and squeezing in as many sets as possible at Sidepony Express Music Festival.

"It's truly a magical experience," Kelly says. "It's kind of like rock 'n' roll summer camp. A town full of musicians and bands and artists. But it's also a drill, man. If you tell Anamieke (the organizer), 'I'll play as much as you want me to,' it'll be like 'Alright, I need to be at this venue at noon, this one at 3…"

Moon calls it "rock 'n' roll boot camp."

People love the 'community, creative freedom and energy'

Garret Bowers of Juniper Ridge is heading into his fourth tour of duty in Bisbee, playing in three different bands.

"I think what people love about Sidepony the most is the community, creative freedom and energy," he says. "Everyone there is excited to participate in an artistic exchange and that extends beyond just the musicians performing. Walking down the street, you will see visual art, interesting people, and unique and bold outfits, sometimes even handmade."

As a musician, the crowds are among the best he's ever seen.

"Everyone's excited to be there, excited to share in the experience, and more specifically to see each musical group share their distinct voice," he says.

"They want to see something unique, and they're excited about what each act has to offer. Walking around Bisbee during Sidepony has a magical quality. You never know what is around the next corner or behind the next door, but chances are, it's unlike anything you've seen before."

It's like a throwback to a different time.

"As someone who never lived in the '70s or the '60s, it feels like the closest to what people talk about that being like, where you're just out experiencing with people and no one's really on their phone much," Bowers says. "Everyone's kind of just having fun."

How Sidepony Express Music Festival landed in Bisbee

Anamieke Quinn, who spearheads the festival each year with husband Michael Quinn, was working with the Phoenix label Fervor Records as an independent contractor while managing local artists as Sidepony Music when she came up with the concept for the festival.

"We would do little showcases called the Sidepony Stable Showcase," Quinn recalls.

At a certain point, she managed to convince a number of those acts to do an out-of-town excursion to the unique Arizona town she loved as the Sidepony Express.

"The idea was that we would all share resources so we wouldn't have to travel with four drum kits," Quinn says. "We could carpool. We could share a room and end up putting on four different shows for Bisbee and make it more economically viable for everybody. It was a Sidepony showcase on the road, meant to target an eclectic audience, which we knew Bisbee had."

Quinn fell in love with Bisbee growing up and started gigging there as she was finding her own voice as a musician.

"I would play there with some different groups that I was in, but it was really hard to convince people to go down there because it was so far away and it was expensive to, you know, get a room for the night and that kind of thing," she says. "So if we were able to figure out some way that we could work it out and earn money from a few different shows and share the resources, that's kind of how it all started."

Bisbee, a town she says "is so artistically oriented, they're not demanding cover songs," was the perfect place to bring that vision to fruition.

"I could tell this is a market where we could do our original music and it would be well-received," she says. "As a working musician and a songwriter, I was always wanting to find 'Where is the audience that wants to hear original music?'"

The first Sidepony Express in 2012 had 30 bands on 5 stages

Quinn's first Sidepony Express was in 2012, an event inspired in part by her visits to the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas.

"I had been participating in South by Southwest off and on for years," she says. "So I had seen what it could be, a bunch of places all at once having live music that's fresh and interesting and new, and people sharing resources so they can make the trip and it's not too burdensome, that kind of thing. I wanted to make something like that."

In its first year, Sidepony Express was mostly artists Quinn was working with and acts she viewed as an extended family on the local scene, including Sun Ghost, Doctor Bones, Field Tripp, Scattered Melodies and Ruca.

"I remember trying really hard to convince Japhy's Descent and Woodworks to come," Quinn recalls, with a laugh. "They were like, 'Yeah, no chance. It's way too far.' They've been every year since then. But I remember, they were like, 'No, that's just impossible.'"

Sidepony organizer knew her friends would be inspired by Bisbee

Quinn said she knew the festival would catch on.

"I had seen a place that I knew that all of my Phoenix musician friends would be inspired by and would enjoy playing," she says. "And I had seen places like South By Southwest and thought, 'I think there's some way that we can kind of do this here.'"

That first year was relatively modest — 30 bands and five venues.

"It was really maybe just 10 bands with side projects and solo acts," Quinn says. "There were 30 unique acts, I guess. But they were all just combinations of each other. Does that makes sense? We just kind of made a bunch of different acts and it was really fun. Then we did it the next year and the word spread."

A lot of the growth the festival has undergone since that first year is word of mouth.

"When we first started, we were begging people to come and trying to convince them," Quinn says. "Now I get 500 emails or something a year, maybe more, from bands that really want to be on the lineup."

How Sidepony grew from 'bands watching bands' to something bigger

Sidepony Express won a Best of Bisbee award in 2018.

By that point, Quinn says, "You could really tell things were shifting. Originally, it was more just, like, bands watching bands. It was around 2018, I think, that we really started getting more fans coming to see it than just people that were involved in it."

Bands watching bands is still a huge part of the festival's appeal.

"That's one of the other things that's magical about it, is these bands, they know of each other, they see each other on posters, they do shows together, even," Quinn says.

"But a lot of times, they haven't actually interacted that much or seen each other really play. It's amazing how many of us don't really get a good sense of what each other's shows are, even though we're in the same community. This is that weekend where that changes."

Another thing that hasn't changed much is bands playing multiple shows throughout the weekend.

"We always try to book them as many times as possible so they can play to different crowds at different times of day in different spaces and show more variety of their material," Quinn says.

"And then if people like them, they can follow them through the weekend, which has a huge effect. Then they come back another weekend, when it's not our festival, and they already have a fanbase there, ready to go."

Why bands release albums and debut new projects at Sidepony

A lot the bands at Sidepony return to Bisbee to play their own shows. The Joeys even did a Halloween gig in Bisbee the weekend before this year's festival.

"When we have done our grant writing, one of the questions they ask you is 'How do you measure your success?,'" Quinn says.

"For us, it's how often do the bands come back and book their own events? How often do they connect with other bands they met at our events and do tours together. We have percentages of people who move there after they've been there, people who buy property or change their whole lives and become a Bisbee person. It's happened several times."

Some bands have even written songs about their love of Bisbee or their Sidepony experience. Others seize the opportunity to draw attention to new projects.

Michael Cornelius of JFA and Brendan deVallance, who brought a sense of childlike wonder to the Phoenix punk scene of the early '80s in their band the Jr. Chemists , have been working on new music after a 45-year break and plan to play their first gig as Cornelius deVallance at Sidepony.

"I think the one of the biggest appeals for the bands is the impact their performances are able to have," Quinn says. "They know that whatever it is that happens, word will get around quickly amongst the community. People will wait until Sidepony to release a new album or debut a new project because they know it will hit hard and everyone will know about it because they were there."

'24 venues within walking distance, 500 shows, 150 bands'

The fact that most of those performances are taking place within a quarter mile of each other adds to that effect.

"You have 24 venues within walking distance, 500 shows, 150 bands. … Words gonna spread," Quinn says. "There's a whole bunch of people in a tight area. And afterward, it's like, 'Oh, you were there?! I was there!' It's the shared memories and the magic of the unexpected kind of anything can happen there."

In addition to wanting to spotlight independent music as well as the magic of Bisbee, Sidepony is dedicated to training a new generation of audio techs and encouraging small music venues to thrive.  

As a touring professional, Quinn's husband's expertise has made it possible to outfit all the venues with PA and backline each year and staff it with capable people. The budget they manage to cobble together through partnerships goes to the production of the festival.

The shows themselves are free, a situation Quinn is adamant about not changing even as the festival continues growing.

"We know a ticket price will never work," she says.

"It's not part of our core ethos, which is non-commercial art, art for art's sake. Ars gratia artis as the famous Latin phrase goes. We don't think the money-making part of the music industry is the important thing at all. So we're not charging a ticket price. Also, it's such a small boutique community that we wouldn't want to exclude any locals and other people that are part of that community by closing off the area."

For details on the festival, visit sideponyexpressmusicfestival.com .

Ed has covered pop music for The Republic since 2007, reviewing festivals and concerts, interviewing legends, covering the local scene and more. He did the same in Pittsburgh for more than a decade. Follow him on X and Instagram @edmasley and on Facebook as Ed Masley. Email him at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com .

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 150 bands coming to tiny Arizona town for Sidepony Express Music Fest