18 APRIL 18-24, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | LETTERS | CONTENTS | stone that give way to the mountain range beyond. “It’s very rustic. … There are rattle- snakes, there are skunks, there are raccoons and mountain lions and lynx. At yoga early in the morning, a deer will casually stroll through. You don’t get that at Ball Arena.” Or at most other music venues, for that matter. Artists who play Red Rocks speak of the venue’s seductiveness, a captivating pull that underscores the thrill of taking the stage and gazing at a crowd framed by rocks that are 300 feet high (that’s almost double the height of Niagara Falls). Before his band’s anniversary show last summer, Bill Nershi of the String Cheese Incident told Westword that the fi rst fi fteen times he played Red Rocks, he was “pretty overwhelmed.” “It’s not just because it’s Red Rocks, but the way that amphitheater is set up,” he explained. “You’re at the bottom of this kind of funnel with these rock sandstone walls reaching up on each side. All the energy is funneling down to you, like, ‘Okay, we’re here now, what are you going to do to impress us?’ and you’re like, ‘Oh, shit.’” Audiences feel that energy, too, and many visitors to the state come specifi cally to see a show at Red Rocks — or just Red Rocks itself. Kitts notes that the venue welcomes up to a million tourists each year: “It’s the number- one free and paid tourist attraction in the state, and most Instagrammed location. “On any given night, we’re going to have between 25 and 30 percent of our audience from out of state,” he continues. “That’s a big number coming in specifi cally for a show at Red Rocks. And so that’s where you realize that this is not only a terrifi c jewel for the Denver metro area, but it’s also a bucket-list visit for a lot of music fans.” COVID still hit the venue hard in 2020. Employees were furloughed by the city, and when concerts did return, there was a highly limited capacity, with artists such as Nathan- iel Rateliff playing to just 250 guests. But Red Rocks bounced back: The year after the pandemic struck, it was the most-attended venue in the world, and this past December, Billboard reported that Red Rocks was the most-attended outdoor venue in the U.S. and the fourth-most-attended in the world. And despite urban myths that question its resilience — we’ve all had a wook wrapped in pashmina scarves relay the rumor that the bass from EDM is degrading the rocks — Red Rocks isn’t going anywhere. In fact, the rocks absorb the sound, which is what makes the venue unparalleled for its superior acoustics. After the fi rst solo performance at Red Rocks, in 1911, Scottish opera singer Mary Garden declared: “Never in any opera house the world over have I found more perfect acoustic properties than those under Creation Rock in the natural auditorium at Mount Morrison.” “This place is 300 million years in the making. The sound is so good because the sandstone that makes up those monoliths absorbs [it],” Kitts explains. “In an arena, the cement and glass and everything bounce the sound around. But this is a naturally occurring amphitheater. And the Native Americans were doing performances here of their own, obviously, for a long time. People in Denver fi gured it out. There were big boulders that had to be blasted and carried out by train, but otherwise, it was already in place. I think that’s Denver’s good luck: It just happened to be there.” In the Beginning... Before it was transformed into the amphi- theater it is today, Red Rocks was a sacred site for the various Ute tribes, which had occupied the area for centuries before the Cheyenne and Arapaho moved in during the early 1800s. It was during that period that Colorow, a future Ute Mountain Utes sub- chief, was born in northern New Mexico as a Comanche. Kidnapped by Utes as a child, he came to Colorado and went on to lead battles for land against the Arapaho and Cheyenne in the future locations of Aspen and Golden, as well as against fortune seekers arriving during the Rush to the Rockies, after gold was discovered at the confl uence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte in 1858. But he maintained peaceful connections with some settlers, particularly in Morrison. The ponderosa pine under which Colorow hosted tribal councils, called the Inspira- tional Tree or Council Tree, still stands at the foot of Dinosaur Ridge northeast of Red Rocks; it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. During times of turmoil, he would take refuge at both Red Rocks and a cave to the south, now called Colorow’s Cave or the Willowbrook Amphitheater. The people who joined in the Gold Rush didn’t all head for the hills. The fi rst territo- rial governor of Colorado, Robert W. Steele, built his mansion just six miles from Red Rocks, where newcomers were awestruck by the rocky grounds. Six years before Colorado gained state- hood in 1876, Red Rocks was christened the Garden of Angels by Jefferson County judge Martin Van Buren Luther. The fi rst recorded owner was Marion Burts, who purchased the land in 1872 and sold it six years later to a railroad engineer out of Pennsylvania, Leonard H. Eicholtz. He transformed it into a park, adding roads and trails that are still climbed today, before selling it to magazine editor John Brisben Walker in 1905 for a mere $5,000. (That’s just $180,000 in today’s fi gures; try fi nding a house for that, much less acres of land.) The surrounding area had been bustling for decades at that point, with stonemason George Morrison opening quarries and transporting the red sandstone seen in many Colorado landmark buildings, including the Capitol. Walker had been in Colorado since the 1880s and donated the forty acres that com- prise Regis University today. But he wanted to keep this land: He had a vision of creat- ing a stage between the two soaring rocks, named Ship Rock and Creation Rock. His other, more wacky vision? Locating that stage in an amusement park. He and his son renamed the grounds the Garden of Titans and created the Mount Morrison Railway Company to promote it, taking tourists up the mountain. (Its path is now partially traced by the Funicular Trail at Red Rocks.) The fi rst offi cial Red Rocks concert was held at the Garden of Titans’ grand opening on May 31, 1906, showcasing Pietro Satriano and his 25-piece brass ensemble. A couple of years later, the largest concert in the venue’s history to date took place, an affair called the Feast of Lanterns, with four military bands and fi reworks honoring the opening of a scenic road on Mount Falcon. Not everyone was happy with Walker’s grandiose plans — which included carving a replica of the Sphinx as well as presidents’ faces into the rocks — and that led to the leg- end of the Hatchet Lady. While some visitors say they can hear the sound of drums from phantom Utes, the Hatchet Lady is by far the most famous resident ghost at Red Rocks, and is known for terrorizing ardent teens. Many accounts of “Old Mrs. Johnson” have proliferated online, but the most popular is that she lived at a ranch nearby and was very unnerved by Walker’s amusement park dreams. She made her abjuration clear by carrying a hatchet, terrifying workers as well as children. But the Hatchet Lady — if there ever was one — couldn’t stop the inevitable. When Walker became strapped for cash, he sold the grounds to entrepreneur John Ross, whose brother, Harold, co-founded the New Yorker magazine. Ross donated several hundred acres to the City of Denver, which went on to buy the rest of the park for a little over $50,000 in 1927. From then on, the venue was called Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Red Rocks Gets in Gear As the automobile boom began, the city began building up the venue, adding a fi ve- mile scenic road through the park in 1930 and erecting the Trading Post the next year, where visitors could buy ice cream for a nickel. But the venue’s construction really got revved up in 1936 through the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Prog- ress Administration, both part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Camping on the property, young men who were previ- ously unemployed worked tirelessly to cre- ate the infrastructure of the amphitheater, which was designed by architect Burnham Hoyt to emulate the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens. Around 200 workers were paid $1 a day to excavate the property, removing 25,000 cubic yards of rock by blasting it away, then landscaping the rest. Hoyt planned the amphitheater in stages, revising the master plan as he familiar- Red Rocks continued from page 17 continued on page 20 Construction at the site began in 1936; the grand opening of Red Rocks Amphitheatre (right) took place in 1941. DENVER ARTS & VENUES DENVER ARTS & VENUES
