“Buy a flower crown, they’re tacky!”

As soon as I heard the guy selling flower crowns charmingly belittling his own product, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Despite the cool fog that hung over the weekend, taking in the towering eucalyptus trees that encase Golden Gate Park, I felt warm. Back at Outside Lands for my third year, it almost instantly felt like I was home again.

On Nov. 17, Denver’s Ellie Caulkins Opera House was filled with the sweet songs of lost love, simplicity and addiction. The source of this therapeutic rapture was former shoe-factory worker turned folk phenomenon Ray LaMontagne. With a voice that harbors the kind of goosebumps and butterflies that first love brings, he captures the many emotions that coincide with the human condition.