Published: Feb. 17, 2023 | The Revival | Kin Collective
Red Rocks is one of the most breathtaking, iconic venues in all the land. While it’s been hosting concerts since 1914, its geologic history has had a patient, steady hand in creating natural acoustics with an encore of striking beauty that has put it on another level in the music pantheon.
From its geologic origins to its present-day situation, the Red Rocks tells a unique story about how inquisitive minds saw something more profound in these rocks and how its concerts have changed how we experience live music.
A Venue Like No Other
For over 200 million years, one of America’s most breathtaking and beloved concert venues has been preparing for its moment under the lights.
For centuries, that’s exactly what she’s done – a daily setlist of sunrise and sunset that infuse the hallowed canyon's iconic red walls with a dizzying array of orange and red light to an audience of mule deer, bobcats, birds, and the Ute Tribe who called this area home.
While the unique geological processes have had a direct impact on Red Rocks, it would take the creative ingenuity of humankind to see the power this place held for music and entertainment. This is the story of one of the most transcendent live music spaces in the world. Red Rocks is an iconic stage with a rare combination of aesthetic and acoustic beauty. It’s hosted some of the world’s best bands and musicians, including the Beatles, B.B. King, John Denver, Grateful Dead, Jethro Tull, James Taylor, U2, Dave Matthews Band, and Pearl Jam.
Here’s a deeper look at Red Rocks through the lens of its geology, history, and some memorable concert moments that have come to define its legacy.
The Story of Music Is Within the Rocks
Geologists like to say that rocks can tell us stories of the past. The Red Rocks we know today are famous for their color, which is part of a large swath of a formation about 17 miles from downtown Denver.
The Red Rocks are part of a section of exposed coarse red sandstone that emerges from below in beautiful craggy arrangements, including the Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs, the Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and the Boulder Flatirons.
These rocks are remnants of an ancient mountain range known as the Ancestral Rockies that rose to prominence during the Pennsylvanian Era and is known for the advance and retreat of shallow inland seas.
75 million years ago, these red rocks were given their classic and iconic shape when uplifting that built the neighboring Rocky Mountains caused subduction – a geologic term for uplifting in the rocks that titled the rocks into the steep angles they display today.
At Red Rocks, two massive sloping rocks larger than Niagra Falls have defined the outdoor venue's natural shape – Ship Rock guarding the south and Creation Rock to the north. A third rock, Stage Rock, flanks the stage to the east.
Finding Music In The Rocks
The Colorado School of Mines is about a 15-minute drive from the famed Red Rocks. The college specializes in teaching students engineering, mathematics, and science. It’s a perfect place to study and dissect how a place like Red Rocks works – why the sound has so routinely been described as perfect.
It comes down to a blend of acoustics and the natural setting that has been shaped and perfected for millions of years. Benjamin Burke, a professor at the School of Mines, says that the arrangement of the rocks makes all the difference in the world. “The building and the rocks before it really send the sound outwards to the audience,” he explains. “The [rock] walls essentially keep that sound in, without there being a roof where there’d have to be sound deadening. So, you get a lot of projection outwards without the reverb, if you will, of the enclosed space for [sound] to bounce around in.”
The composition of the rocks, compared to something like granite, also can absorb sound and keep it within the amphitheater. The stage's location and the disc shape of the rock behind the stage create what he calls an “ideal transfer of sound.”
Now, the venue is outside, which presents challenges with the fickle late afternoon weather of the Front Range, including rain, wind, and even sleet or snow. The Colorado Symphony is known for collaborating with many artists throughout the concert season, requiring a team of engineers to strategically place microphones alongside instruments and one heck of a state-of-the-art PA speaker system to deploy their sound where it needs to strategically.
That sound system was well before the time of world-renowned opera singer Mary Garden. She was the first concert performer at Red Rocks, long before the venue took shape. In 1911, she delivered an operatic performance with sound clarity that blew her away. She professed the venue had a perfect acoustic sound that beat top-performing opera houses worldwide.
John Brisbane Walker, a Denver entrepreneur, had visions of seeing more concerts at the venue and produced many of them at the turn of the century, between 1906 and 1910. Walker devised the venue’s earliest attractions, including a stage for music and a cable funicular that whisked tourists from the base to the top. In 1927, the city of Denver arranged to buy the venue from Walker for $54,000. Once in the hands of the City of Denver’s parks department (where it remains to this day), the team was convinced securing the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to further develop the concert venue into what it is today – with a modern stage, entrances, ramps, and seating. The work commenced under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) – a Depression-era work program under the guidance of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The project took five years to complete and remains one of the most beautiful accomplishments of the CCC era.
Red Rocks: Design Deeply Connected With Landscape
Today, Red Rocks is appreciated by musicians and fans, and architects and designers revere it.
The job was complex and daunting and taken on by Company 1848, Camp SP-13-3, Mount Morrison. A crew of 200 workers were paid $1 per day ($30 a month) to work on the project. They blasted and hauled out 25,000 cubic yards of dirt and rock and installed 90,000 square feet of flagstone, ten truckloads of cement, 800 tons of quarried stone, and 30,000 pounds of reinforced steel.
According to a history written about their work, this was different from your run-of-the-mill steam shovel job. This project was hard labor and required a blend of skilled disciplines, including stone masonry, electrical engineering, cement, work, carpentry, surveying, landscaping, and blasting – a lot of blasting.
The job also entailed all the minutiae one would expect when constructing an enduring monument to music, and a place that could accommodate 10,000 people and 4,000 vehicles.
The members of this company are not just working for a dollar a day for the Government—they are building an amphitheatre that will stand for centuries, and in generations to come this work will remain a symbol of advancement of the western culture of today… This amphitheatre will be an enduring monument to the Civilian Conservation Corps in Colorado for years to come.
The team also helped coordinate and construct the stage, including a state-of-the-art lighting system and a control room located under the seats. Up to that time, only one other theatre with a room like that existed – the Rockefeller Theatre in New York City.
Much of the work went along with the architectural designs of Burnham Hoyt and his assistant, Stanley E. Morse. The finished product honored and respected the geologic history and landscape. Building walls and stone is infused into the structures. In many places, visitors can see layers of exposed bedrock, sloping downward in a way that showcases their colors and layers – a lasting tribute to the landscape that was here for centuries before the music ever played a note.
While most businesses have a soft launch to perfect their operations before bringing in the public, Red Rocks was no different.
On June 8, 1941, after over a decade of work, city officials and other dignitaries were welcomed to the ampitheatre with a performance by the Junior Orchestra of the Denver Symphony Society.
A week later, on June 15, 1941, the general public was welcomed in for the first show ever at the new Red Rocks, the New York Metropolitan Opera singer Helen Jepsen performing “Ave Maria.”
The Civilian Conservation Corps' work and Hoyt's creative and architectural mastery of Hoyt would get almost immediate recognition. Today, it’s considered Hoyt’s crowning achievement, not only for its acoustic perfection, but also because of the seamless blending of the natural elements that define the surroundings. Red Rocks became the only work in the state of Colorado featured in the American Institute of Architects exhibit at the National Gallery in 1957. In 1950, the Museum of Modern Art in New York chose Red Rocks as one of that decade's most outstanding examples of American architecture.
And on July 21, 2015, Red Rocks Park was designated a National Historic Landmark status.
The Day Rock Music Died at Red Rocks
The 1971 concert season at Red Rocks was highly-anticipated. Opening a slate of five summer shows was British prog-rockers, Jethro Tull.
When Tull’s booker, Barry Fey, locked in the show at Red Rocks, the venue had not reached the legendary status it holds today. Back then, it was simply a beautiful outdoor venue in close proximity to a significant Western American town that could pull a medium-sized draw with around 10,000 seats to fill. It would bookend a stop the night prior at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City and another the following night at the Civic Auditorium in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Leading up to the performance, the band could not imagine the turbulence that would greet them as they departed for Red Rocks. The first indication of trouble would be local rumors of unrest for a few thousand angry fans who couldn’t get their hands on tickets to the show. They showed up in a group of around 2,000 people on the afternoon of the scheduled performance.
Extra law enforcement was dispatched to the Red Rocks around 3 p.m., and an impasse was handed down from police: Fans without tickets could not attend the show but could sit behind the venue and listen to the music for free. The crowd chose another option: get into Red Rocks.
About an hour before Jethro Tull took the stage, the unticketed masses decided to break into the venue. Alarmed police worried about the rocky terrain provided security concerns ordered a helicopter above the venue to dispatch tear gas. The tear gas made the situation hairy, causing the rioters to panic and, in some instances, turn violent – hurling glass bottles and rocks at the police dispatched above them. Many burst into the venue, and the 10,000-strong crowd swelled.
The band itself almost missed their show. If you’ve been to Red Rocks, you’re likely familiar with the memorable drive into the venue. A few narrow, winding roads lead to parking lots at the top and the base of the venue. There’s not an easy way in. The band was meandering the way up and came to a police checkpoint and was told to turn around – there would be no show tonight, the local authorities declared.
“We were leaving our hotel to go up to the show when we received word that there was a problem. We set off in our rented station wagons and were met by a police roadblock that tried to turn us back. We said, ‘We’re the band,’ and we were told, ‘There’s not going to be a show, go away.’” – Ian Anderson
Steadfast to go on, the band got creative. The band found another backroad that bypassed the initial roadblock to get closer to the stage. They saw the chaos unfolding, and at another police checkpoint, they bargained with law enforcement – barring the band from playing would only make things worse.
“Look, if you don’t let us go onstage, not only are there going to be 2,000 people outside rioting, but 9,000 people inside are going to go crazy as well.” – Ian Anderson
Reluctantly, the Denver Police let the band through and onto the stage, where they tried to create some semblance of order. Anderson famously bellowed to the audience when the first song was finished, “Welcome to World War Three!”
The clouds of smoke from tear gas created an uncomfortable situation for the band and fans. A makeshift medical tent behind the stage helped fans who were bloodied during the altercation or were overcome from smoke. The band remembers seeing babies passed down to the front of the stage to remove them from the gas cloud – a surreal site for all.
Even more surreal – the band left the venue hiding from the police under blankets in the station wagons they arrived in, a far cry from the tour busses and sprinter vans that shuttle bands to the venue today.
In a way, the concert and ensuing riot were a bit of symbolism on a larger crusade unfolding – the war between fans of this new-fangled rock and roll and the mainstream America that failed to understand it. There was a major shift in the sonic landscape of the day, and the passionate crowd clamoring for a slab of the bench at Red Rocks to see Jethro Tull was fueled by the tunes of their album Aqualung, not for the folk.
Ironically, the venue promoters at Red Rock had been pushing for two years to allow rock concerts. The Jethro Tull show was to be the first. The riot and aftermath would lead to another rock sabbatical. Twenty-eight people sustained injuries and were admitted to local hospitals. Twenty people were arrested on various charges, and a car in the parking lot was flipped and burned - an image emblazoned across newspapers and late-night local news the following day.
The concert season was canceled, including stops by Judy Collins, Burt Bacharach, Rod McKuen, and the Vienna State Opera Ballet.
Even more, the city of Denver and the police chief imposed an extension of the rock concert ban that would last almost four years. Not only did rock concerts temporarily end at Red Rocks, but most other concert venues in Denver as well. Barry Fey initially agreed to the ban, but had enough by 1975 when he sued the city. A judge relented and ruled in Fey’s favor, citing a famous line: “Who do you think you are, czars? You’re going to tell the people what they should listen to?”
Have you been to a show at Red Rocks? Share your best concert memories with us, and we’ll share them in an upcoming newsletter or social post.