Red Rocks

Nine Inch Nails 9/2/22

I play fantasy football with eleven of my buddies and every year since 2014 right around Labor Day Weekend we, along with a handful of other usual suspects have traveled to a new city to do our draft, drink a shitload and generally cause a ruckus. So far, we have hit Phoenix, Ensenada, Vegas, Portland, Cabo, Austin, Nashville, Key West and this year we decided to do Denver. One of the guys in the league lives in Denver so logistically that made it a little easier than normal to plan everything. By sheer coincidence/luck Nine Inch Nails announced a small tour with two consecutive nights at Red Rocks that coincided with the dates we were going to be there so all of us agreed that would be a cool thing to do while we were there.

The guy who lives in Denver was also getting married two weeks later so we used this as an excuse to treat the concert like a surprise bachelor party. We had custom jerseys with his face made up and once all 18 of us were on the party bus to Red Rocks we unveiled the jerseys and put on wigs, neon shutter glasses and white gloves. It was quite a sight to have 18 guys in the same costume spill out of the bus once we got there and nobody there knew what the hell was going on but everyone was cool (as most people at rock concerts are). My buddy Marvin who is notorious for securing a last-minute ticket at the concert was the only one of us that did not have a ticket but the bachelor told the ticket taking lady of our conundrum and she just let him in without a ticket!

A band called Yves Tumor opened and they were not my cup of tea. Then again after not having seen Nine Inch Nails for eight years I don’t think there were many bands that could have satisfied me as an opener as I just wanted to get to why we were all there. The whole time Yves Tumor was onstage mother nature seemed to be brewing up a storm that was on a collision course with us. I thought it would have been cool, both figuratively and literally, to get rained on but mother nature had something better up her sleeve…

Red Rocks is widely considered one of the best outdoor amphitheaters or concert venues in general and for good reason. The place is incredible. I was lucky enough to experience this beautiful spot once before when I saw STP here back in 2008 but having 17 guys with me was an altogether new experience. As soon as Trent and Co. took the stage mother nature put on a hell of lightning storm as a backdrop to the electricity flowing from the stage for the duration of the show and we never did get rained on. The setlist was fantastic but there were a few glaring omissions with no “March of the Pigs,” “Terrible Lie” or “Closer.” “March of the Pigs” was what I wanted to hear the most but I guess he had to save something up his sleeve for the second night (he played that and “Closer” on night two). “Reptile” always sounds so much heavier when played live so that along with “The Wretched,” “Burn” and the selections from Broken more than made up for any “omissions.”

SETLIST: Somewhat Damaged, The Day the World Went Away, Wish, Last, Sin, This Isn’t the Place, Reptile, Discipline, Ahead of Ourselves, The Line Begins to Blur, Echoplex, The Frail, The Wretched, The Perfect Drug, Survivalism, Every Day Is Exactly the Same, Burn, Gave Up, Head Like A Hole, Only, The Big Come Down, And All That Could Have Been, Hurt

Stone Temple Pilots 7/2/08

STP Red Rocks

Red Rocks is the only other place ever mentioned in the same breath as the Gorge in terms of concert venues so of course I had to go see for myself what all the rave reviews were about. The excuse to finally go came to fruition when STP decided to stop at Red Rocks on their summer tour, which happened to align perfectly with my friends Jason and Susan living in Denver for the moment and a few unexpected days off from work. Marvin and his girlfriend at the time decided to come along partially because the girlfriend’s parents that lived in Denver happened to be out of town that week, thus giving us a free place to stay.

I had not seen STP since they headlined the Family Values tour back in 2001 when they were touring for their last release, the criminally underrated Shangri-La Dee Da. STP disbanded not long after in 2003 due to tensions within the band. After the disbandment Scott made a couple albums with Velvet Revolver and the Deleo brothers made one with Army of Anyone. Now they were back for a “reunion tour” and the fans were there to welcome them with open arms. There was no new album to promote, just a celebration of the badass music already in the catalog.

Red Rocks was exactly as advertised; a natural amphitheater embedded in the red rock formations in the middle of nowhere outside of Denver. The interesting part of the area to me is that these red rocks are only in the one small area where the amphitheater is. Everything else around is nothing but flat land.

I am not sure why but we arrived to the venue fairly early which left a lot of time to drink and screw around in the parking lot beforehand. The only thing we were missing was mushrooms. If I was going to come all that way to compare one natural amphitheater to another I thought it was worth doing it right. Unfortunately Jason’s connection fell through. We befriended our parking lot neighbors but they did not have any either. Then in a moment of sheer serendipity the universe must have heard my request because right after our parking lot neighbors told me they did not have any some random guy came around the car and asked if we wanted to buy some mushrooms. You can’t make this stuff up folks.

I cannot tell you who opened the show but I can say with confidence that the mushrooms were strong and Stone Temple Pilots were on point for this show. They sounded fantastic! I had a great experience at Red Rocks but I still have to give the edge to the Gorge.

SETLIST: Big Empty, Wicked Garden, Big Bang Baby, Silvergun Superman, We Will Rock You, Vasoline, Lounge Fly, Lady Picture Show, Sour Girl, Creep, Crackerman, Plush, Interstate Love Song, Too Cool Queenie, Coma, Down, Sex Type Thing, Sin, Dead & Bloated, Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart