Report

2026 Fire In The Mountains – Friday

Thursday can be found here.

Our Friday edition will include a bit on the food available at the 2026 Fire in the Mountains Festival. We brought a cooler full of food, thinking our primary source of nourishment would come at our campsite. We ended up bringing most of it home, as we spent very little time at our campsite. More on that later.

Tickets to the Fire in the Mountains BBQ sold out many months before the festival and before we even knew that there were BBQ food tickets once available, so that wasn’t an option.

The daily BBQs were $35 if you were able to purchase the very limited tickets. The lines for the BBQ did not look pleasant. They were long and unshaded, so we didn’t feel too bad about missing out on the BBQ option. Instead, we had a meal or two each day at the food trucks for about half the BBQ price. The lines were short or non-existent, and the food was good. Both the BBQ and food trucks were sort of between the GA camping and the stages, so that was pretty convenient. One suggestion for future years is to have a food truck or two near the stages. A couple of times I wanted a quick bite during a performance but didn’t want to walk all the way back to our campsite or to the food trucks halfway to our campsite.

Mornings and early afternoons at Fire in the Mountains are for sound checks and workshops. My tent was too hot by about 9 a.m., so napping, unfortunately, wasn’t an option.

The workshops were awesome!

The first one we attended was “Indigenizing The Mind - Animism and the Living World”. There were so many people in attendance (and it was too hot to sit in the sun) that we opted for no view of the presenters and our feet in Lower Two Medicine Lake while listening. Steve Von Till of Neurosis was the moderator.

Next up was “Music as Medicine Panel Discussion: Coping, Connection, and Catharsis” with an all-star panel including Mike Scheidt of YOB, Dylan Running Crane, Rebecca Vernon of SubRosa, Aaron Turner of Old Man Gloom and Neurosis, and Danny Kiranos of Amigo the Devil. The stories and experiences shared were wonderful.

Get this… As “background music” for these workshops, you get to hear epic tunes from the nearby stages as the bands playing later in the evening are doing their sound check. I remember getting chills as Mike Scheidt was speaking over Agalloch’s “Ashes Against the Grain” sound check. (I saw YOB open for Agalloch 11 years ago so the two bands are already somewhat fused together in my brain!)

Rebecca Vernon’s 1515 story, with Aaron Turner sitting next to her, brought tears to my eyes.

Before the first performance on the main stage began, Everett Armstrong and his wife provided the crowd with a Tribal Council Welcome. We sang “happy birthday” to their young daughter, also on the stage, who was turning a year older the following day. Fun.

Yaotl Mictlan kicked off the live music on Friday on the Running Eagle Stage (hereafter referred to as “The Big Stage”).

Great band! I picked up one of their shirts at the merch tent. I randomly ended up eating at their table after their set and heard they will be recording a new album soon.

You never know who you will be standing or sitting next to at a festival like this. You may find yourself ordering fry bread next to Steve Von Till or sipping a boba tea with Amigo the Devil. How about taking a bath with Abbath in Lower Two Medicine Lake?

Black Metal in the middle of the day isn’t ideal, but hopefully we’ll be seeing Yaotl Mictlan after dark in a future installment of Fire in the Mountains.

I noticed something really cool about the teepees on both sides of The Big Stage. They weren’t just for decoration. They were the green rooms for the artists. Nice.

El Welk then inaugurated the second, much smaller stage (called the Lone Walker Stage). Typically, there was about a five-minute break between the acts who played on two different stages. You could see every minute of every band if you could withstand the heat. I couldn’t, so I think I headed to Lower Two Medicine Lake after a couple of El Welk tunes.

Wayfarer was up next on The Big Stage. I wasn’t going to miss a minute of their set as I’m a big fan.

With band members performing double (or triple) duty in other bands, like Stormkeep and Blood Incantation, substitutions are sometimes necessary for live events.

I thought we may get to see David Eugene Edwards of 16 Horsepower guest on Wayfarer’s new song that he is featured on since he was “in the house” (or maybe the teepee) at the time, but they played “Hollow Hearts On The Trail To Eden” without him.

Side note: I saw Opeth and Bloodbath on the same day at a festival in Sweden almost 10 years ago. Did Mikael Akerfeldt perform his own vocals for Bloodbath on that day? Unfortunately, no.

Is this a photo of Stormkeep or Wayfarer? No way to know…

Battle vests make a lot of sense in frequently chilly Scandinavia. In late July in Montana, a battle breechcloth is far more appropriate.

At this point, Raven Chacon & Iggor Cavalera were supposed to play on the small stage. Iggor had travel issues, so their set was delayed until Saturday.

I love Baroness, but a butterfly hindered my view for some of their set.

Baroness played “Pale Sun” for just the second time to a live audience. It went well with the place and time of day.

Is it time to talk about the wind? The wind came and went during the festival. When it was in full force (which frequently was the case), it was incredible. My tent, which was a four-person tent and over six feet tall and with just me in it (the blue one in Thursday’s report), would completely concave so that both sides and both ends were completely touching me. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep.

I think it was just before the Midwife set that an announcement was made for campers to check the camping area as many tents and canopies had blown away.

I watched one song from Midwife and then headed to GA camping. Our tents were still intact, but our E-Z Up was down and in pieces. I don’t think anyone’s pop-up canopies survived. I took the stakes out of our E-Z Up and used them to reinforce our tents. We would spend no more time at our campsite other than to (try to) sleep.

Agalloch performed “Ashes Against the Grain” in its entirety. Amazing! “Not Unlike the Waves” is one of my favorite songs of all time.

I’ve been a fan of Amigo the Devil for several years, but this was my first chance to see a live performance. Fantastic, hilarious, fun, fun, fun. Oh, and heavy/dark enough to not seem out of place at a festival like this.

I must admit that I had never heard of 16 Horsepower until I knew I may be going to Fire in the Mountains. “Gothic Country”? What the hell is that? I don’t like country music, but I did get into 16 Horsepower in the preceding months. I enjoyed their set on Friday night. A frisson ran through me on multiple songs. Try getting “Black Soul Choir” out of your head while the wind tries to send you to North Dakota at 2 a.m.

Stay tuned for Saturday and Sunday.