12/6/2023 0 Comments Red rocks amphitheatre opened![]() The first show I’d like to highlight dates back to August 26, 1964, when The Beatles played Red Rocks as part of their U.S. It resulted in a five-year ban of rock concerts at the venue. The latter unfortunately led to a confrontation between non-paying fans who had arrived to the sold-out show without tickets and the police. The challenge, however, is to find live footage from there, capturing artists I truly dig, especially old gigs from the ’60s and ’70s, such as Jimi Hendrix in September 1968 or Jethro Tull in June 1971. And as you might imagine, there have been many. Now let’s get to the fun part: Music performances at Red Rocks. In one of the less glorious aspects in Red Rocks’ history, the area around it was inhabited for hundreds of years by the native American Ute tribe, until they were displaced in the 19th century, according to this collection of facts about the venue, published by the Denver Post in June 2016. There are traces dating back to the Jurassic period 160 million years ago, including dinosaur tracks and fossil fragments. It took the natural amphitheater more than 200 million years to form. What’s truly amazing to me is the age of the rock formations. After a five-year construction, Red Rocks Amphitheatre opened to the public in 1941. The price? $54,133, which is the equivalent of approximately $797,920 today – quite a bargain, if you ask me! Denver architect Burnham Hoyt was brought in to design the facility. The next important milestone in the venue’s history occurred in 1927, when manager of Denver parks John Cranmer convinced the city to acquire the area of Red Rocks from Brisben. Brisben, a magazine publisher and automobile entrepreneur, had the vision to leverage the site’s natural acoustics for entertainment purposes. Construction of the facility near Morison, Col., 10 miles west of Denver, began in 1936, though the first concerts there were produced by John Brisben Walker as early as 1906. How long? It somewhat depends where you start. Red Rocks Amphitheatre has a long history, something I had not been aware of and frankly had not thought about. Plus, my last post in the venues category dates back to August 2019 – another good reason to look at one of the places where the ultimate thrill in music takes place: The live experience! ![]() This gave me the idea to write about what must be one of the most magnificent outdoor performance venues. It keeps getting views, with the most recent occurring just a few days ago. In January 2018, I did a post about Bad Company’s album Live at Red Rocks.
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