Dierks Bentley (7 Peaks 2022) OC: …respond to it. 1:13
“Anybody that knows me knows how important Seven Peaks has been to me and luckily I get to say will continue to be for me, because although COVID shut us out for two years and we had some difficulties working with the little city we were working with. It’s got new life going into 2022. Some huge acts, the biggest in the business, are gonna be there this year with us, this Labor Day Weekend in August and September. I’m so excited for Seven Peaks, I guess you could call it 2.0. You know we had a successful launch those first few years – in ’18 and ’19 – but obviously the pandemic messed up a lot of things. But the new location is killer. [It’s] right down the street from the old spot. The lineup is incredible, and that location! Getting a chance to spend your Labor Day weekend in the mountains of Colorado where it’s 70 (degrees) and sunny, just beautiful weather, and the vibe is so good. I’m just so thankful, not only as someone that’s involved with the festival and its success, but as a human being. There’s no place I’d rather be for my Labor Day Weekend than hanging out with my friends backstage, onstage, out there in the festival grounds with all these great fans than there. I’m so excited for the launch, THE Re-launch of Seven Peaks and so excited to see how the fans respond to it.”

Dierks Bentley (7Peaks 2022) OC: …off the ground. 1:32
“Location is really important for this festival, right? It’s a Colorado based festival and it needs to feel like Colorado. It’d be a lot easier to put it on in Denver at the football or soccer stadiums there, where other bands do, but I wanted, you know, a lot of fans coming from all over the country that had never even been to Colorado. So, we want to make sure it feels like Colorado. So it has to be a little further away from Denver, and Buena Vista wass a great town. We obviously had to cancel in 2020, and we had some differences of agreement about whether the show could have gone on in ‘21 or not. We felt like it could have, but they’re a smaller community and had some, um, just taking a more cautious approach. So, I had a friend that has a place we’re going to be in Villa Grove, he’s been talking to us the last few years trying to get us, take a look at his site, and we used last year as an opportunity to look at it. It’s, you know, another 40 minutes down the road, the same road that the last festival was on the same location, same just 40 minutes down the same highway. And it’s a great spot and there’s no more issues with, you know, help with the folks, the town councils. So, because he owns the spot, and Villa Grove’s really excited to have us in town and easy to fly into Colorado. It’s a great location. And then we just had a massive line-up and to have a Morgan Wallen and Hardy and Lainey Wilson and Travis Denning and Jordan Davis and bluegrass bands like the infamous String Dusters, who I love, Grammy award winning bluegrass band, and Rapid Grass. And of course, of the 90’s, folks, it just feels like it’s a, you know, it’s our best shot at giving this festival the best chance we can have to really get off the ground.”

Dierks Bentley (7 Peaks schedule) OC: …sticking around. 1:09
“I almost forget that I’m playing the festival. You know, I’m so busy run around and try for every band that they’re just let them know, ‘Hey, I’m the guy that’s putting this on,’ and I’m not just backstage hanging on my bus. I go to see I only missed like one or two performances in 2019, that’s just because of a meet and greet I was doing or something. So, I go watch everybody. You know, I get up on stage and I sing with a lot of people. I’m out in the campgrounds a lot, you know, and then all of a sudden, it’s like, Oh, Sunday night, like, I actually have to play a show to watch this year, like hosting this. I’m also like, I got to go up and do the whole thing, kind of switch gears. So, yeah, a lot of it’s just hosting, but then yeah, our set list, it’s going to be similar to what we do on the rest of the tour because there’s that much time that goes in that particular setlist. I’m not really trying to change up the set list a lot night after night. I just went like a month of working to getting exactly right set list with little sections that make it different if I choose to add a new song or do something specific to that town. But we really try to put on the best show and then present that to different audiences every night…So, it’s going to be mostly that. But yeah, obviously guests are gonna get up to sing with us, and that’s a different deal than usual where there are so many friends sticking around.”