Michelle Webb Builds Longmont Punk Scene at Summit Tacos

The smell of fried tortillas and stale beer hangs heavy in the humid air of a Longmont backyard, a sensory collision that feels less like a restaurant patio and more like a living room where the furniture has been pushed against the walls to make room for bodies. It is August, and the heat is thick enough to taste, mixing with the sweat of two hundred people who have traveled not just from their homes, but from the margins of a scene that has long waited for a center point.

This is the new reality of northern Colorado’s punk resurgence, a movement that is no longer hiding in the shadows of Denver’s D3 Arts or Fort Collins’ small venues, but is instead claiming space in plain sight, right here in Longmont.

The catalyst for this shift is Michelle Webb, a 25-year Boulder County resident who realized she was missing the very community she had sought since moving to Washington, D.C., at 18. She didn’t want to move; she wanted to find the scene. When she couldn’t find it, she decided to build it. Her first major test was a show at Summit Tacos, a local Mexican joint. Webb had no venue lined up, no big-name bands guaranteed, and a modest goal of forty attendees. She sold 220 tickets.

The result was a revelation. The show exposed a fragmented network of musicians and fans who were already operating in Longmont but had been missing each other. Webb’s Instagram account, Longmont Punk, became the hub, connecting the dots in a way that previous venues and organizers had not.

Core to this energy is Jacob Morales, the 18-year-old drummer of the punk band MONKEYPAW. Morales remembers his first hardcore show — the all-ages event featuring The Runts in Denver in 2022 — as a visceral experience of terror and exhilaration. He compares it to a roller coaster: the slow climb up the hill, the fear of puking, and then the drop, the twisting, the turning, until the fear is replaced by pure motion. That feeling, he says, is what punk is to him.

Three years later, that feeling has found a home. Morales and his band played a show at Summit Tacos, marking Morales’ first time playing in Longmont. It was also the first event hosted by Webb on her home turf. For D’Andre Lara, a local fan attending his first mosh pit, the experience was immediate and physical. He felt the surge of adrenaline, jumped in, fell down, was picked up, and pushed back in. “It was just like in the heat of the moment type of thing,” Lara said. “Just a very fun, expressional type of movement.”

The growth hasn’t been without its hurdles. Webb faced rejection when approaching venues, with some turning down the idea of hosting punk shows in their spaces. She considered the garage route before a friend suggested Summit Tacos might be open to using their yard. The venue said yes, and the community responded.

This isn’t just about music; it’s about identity and place. For young people like Morales and Lara, Longmont is no longer just a bedroom community or a commuter town. It is a destination for a specific kind of raw, unfiltered expression. The scene is self-sustaining, built on flyers, word of mouth, and the shared understanding that if you look for it, you will find it.

The energy in that backyard was palpable, a chaotic harmony of drums and shouting voices. As the last band finished their set and the crowd began to disperse, the air still vibrated with the bass frequencies, leaving behind the scent of rain on hot pavement and the lingering echo of a snare drum hitting its mark.