I feel the weight of my dreams… Madeon’s “Good Faith” era has started! I’ve been waiting for his new album, well, since I became obsessed with “Adventure” back in 2015 when it launched. My cousin and I signed up for the tour pre-sale and grabbed tickets to the closest location we could: Denver. I sat on the tickets for awhile until hitting up my buddy, Ampulse. I suggested we make an experience out of this concert: road trip, Rocky Mountain National Park, and top it all off with an epic show from Madeon. This post is going to be a small trip journal that I update here and there leading up to, during, and probably after our adventures.

09/06/2019

As of this date, we’ve got our RMNP cabin booked for two nights and our rental car. The last step is to book our Denver lodging to crash after the show. I’ve also been chatting with Ampulse each week to talk about things we need to pack. Another very important thing we’ve been setting up is our trip playlist; curating the best tunes. I’ve been reaching deep into the archive of music from my past. Ampulse and I have been friends for ~15 years, so I’m sure we’ll dig up some great gems to jam to. It’s still a few months out, but I’m getting pumped for the trip; it’s practically all I can think about and I sure need the mental break.

11/04/2019

We’re just a few days away from Good Faith! At this point, it’s basically all I can think about. I’ve been slowly adding to the road-trip playlist, and even started remixing/remastering one of my favorite Toby Emerson songs from back in the day; I’m hoping to debut it to my friends when we set off. This past weekend, I met up with Ampulse at a local coffee shop to finalize some logistics. Side note, the coffee shop was great, it was a renovated old house with rooms upstairs; we chilled in one of those. Now it’s down to the wire, so I’ve got to start collecting all my things and break in my hiking shoes.

11/10/2019

As of writing this, we’ve already experienced Madeon’s “Good Faith” live show. I figured it’d be easier to sum up the past couple days all at once than break them out into different entries. On 11/07, we woke up very early: around 5:00am. I did a quick run to Starbucks to pick up the fuel. Once I got back to the house, we loaded up the car pretty quickly, did a few final passes to make sure we didn’t forget everything, then set off. After topping off the tank, we actually set off. I kicked off our road-trip playlist. The entire drive out there was filled with great conversation. It was nice to have enough time to cover a range of topics with my pals.

We had forgotten about the time-change, so we actually arrived at Estes Park earlier than expected. After checking in, we attempted to drive into the park to catch the sunset, but because of the elevation dips we narrowly missed it. The sun set pretty quickly and we were slightly nervous about ice on the roads in the park so we headed back to the room. We relaxed a bit and got to sleep pretty early; we planned on catching the sunrise at the break of dawn (~5:00am).

Morning rolled around and we rushed out the door. We drove into the park which was just barely lit by ambient morning light. We weren’t sure how far we were going to make it due to winter road conditions; I had a particular overlook in mind that I’d been to in 2017. We made it close to said outlook and hopped out. It was cold and quiet. We meandered about, hoping the sun would peak over to the right of one of the mountains that would have otherwise obstructed the view. As the sun clipped over we were relieved to have a full view and it was gorgeous.

After the sun peaked over, the area was bathed in a warm orange glow. We headed over to some rocks that were definitely meant to be climbed; no that’s not sarcasm, it showed signs of being a touristy jungle-gym. We snapped some “album artwork” and “artist profile pics” then found our way back to the car. We meandered a bit before making our way to the Bear Lake trailhead so we could trek out to Emerald Lake. It was the only hike we had planned and we hadn’t really anticipated that it would be totally packed with snow and ice. It made for beautiful scenery but was somewhat treacherous; we nearly fell a few times.

Once we made it back, we decided to just chill at the cabin so we’d have enough energy stocked up for the Good Faith live show the following day. That night we chatted, browsed our favorite songs on YouTube, and played a round of Smash Down in Smash Ultimate.

The next day, we reluctantly left Estes Park around 8:00 or so. None of us really wanted to leave the mountains, it’s always a bit of a downer. I suspect we’ll be back. We made our way down to Denver and checked in at the hotel. With a bit of time to kill, we wandered downtown to a “Five on Black” for a quick bite; think Brazilian Chipotle. After meandering downtown a bit more, we headed back to the hotel for a little R&R before the show. We all popped out our Nintendo Switches and waited… Around 5:00 we decided we should grab some dinner. I found a place called “Quiero Arepas” inside a place called Avanti. Once we got there, we were pleasantly surprised that Avanti was basically a two-level social hub with multiple restaurants. Think open food court with outdoor seating. I’m pretty sure several comments were made about wishing we had something like this back home. We downed our food and sat a while taking in the atmosphere. We stopped back by the hotel once more to prep for the show then made our way to The Fillmore. We arrived about an hour early, so there was a bit of waiting in the cold.

The show opened with LP Giobbi; she was pretty cool live but security had to give her several warnings to get off the stage. Then came Madeon… I’m not even going to attempt to describe the show in words. There are plenty of videos circulating so I highly recommend searching those out.

We got back to the room, showered, and crashed; we had the long drive back in the morning. Dawn rolled around and there was a looming sense of drab about the day. We’d hiked in the mountains and witnessed Good Faith live in a matter of days. That was behind us and all that remained was to return home on the lovely drive across Kansas.

All in all, what a fantastic trip with my friends. We’d never road-tripped before, so I got to know them better and break out to experience new things. I hope this is just a taste of some future adventures we’ll have.