Red Rocks Amphitheatre - Notable Recordings

Notable Recordings

Red Rocks has been a popular venue for live recordings, particularly videos due to the visual uniqueness of the setting. During the 1970s and 1980s, local folk-rocker John Denver recorded several world-televised concerts at Red Rocks. U2's 1983 concert video, Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky, became a best-selling long-form concert video and several songs became popular music videos. Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks released a 60-minute long DVD of her 1986 concert at the amphitheatre, towards the end of her Rock a Little tour. In 1992 The Moody Blues performed live for the first time with a symphony orchestra for a PBS special "Live at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra". The concert also was released on CD and DVD along with a companion DVD "The Other Side of Red Rocks" which documented the rehearsals and preparation for the concert and excerpts from the concert.

Other Red Rocks material on CD and DVD includes Dave Matthews Band's albums Live at Red Rocks 8.15.95 and Weekend on the Rocks, The Samples live album, Live in Colorado, John Tesh's Live at Red Rocks and Worship at Red Rocks, the Incubus DVD Alive at Red Rocks, Blues Traveler's Live on the Rocks album, Steve Martin's comedy album A Wild and Crazy Guy, The Moody Blues's A Night at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, and Boukman Eksperyans' album "Live At Red Rocks". Widespread Panic's DVD "The Earth Will Swallow You" features a 15 min segment on Red Rocks.

The live Neil Young album, Road Rock Vol. 1, and its accompanying DVD Red Rocks Live were filmed and recorded at Red Rocks in 2000 during the "Silver and Gold" tour. Local Colorado band Big Head Todd and the Monsters released a DVD and live album of a notable 1995 performance in 2003, capturing what has become a local annual early season tradition. In 2009, they followed the original recording up with a 2-CD/1DVD set from their June 2008 performance.

A two-volume 2003 album, Carved in Stone, features live performances by various artists at Red Rocks, including R.E.M., Ben Harper, Coldplay, The Allman Brothers Band, and Phish, with proceeds going towards a fund for preservation of the park and amphitheatre.

Phish front-man, Trey Anastasio, included excerpts from his 2005 performance at Red Rocks on the DVD that accompanied his album "Shine." Country music superstar Gary Allan filmed the music video for his song "Watching Airplanes" during a live sell-out concert at Red Rocks in August 2007. A portion of British rock band Oasis's rockumentary film "Lord Don't Slow Me Down" was filmed at Red Rocks. A Perfect Circle also included one live video recording on the CD/DVD AMotion. Insane Clown Posse came back with Twiztid, Blaze Ya Dead Homie, Boondox, the Axe Murder Boyz, Grave Plott, The ROC, and Motown Rage in May 2008 to Red Rocks to perform the 'first annual' Hatchet Attacks Super Show, for which they released a video later that year.

Depeche Mode recorded their show at the amphitheatre on August 29, 2009, for their live albums project Recording the Universe.

Country superstar Kenny Chesney included a live version of You and Tequila, a duet with Grace Potter, on his latest album Welcome to the Fishbowl. The recording has a segment with audience participation singing the chorus "You and Tequila make me crazy, run like poison in my blood, one more night could kill me baby, one is one too many, one more is never enough".

On August 29th, 2012 Mumford & Sons recorded their live performance of their first single off Babel, "I Will Wait", the performance was released on September 9th, 2012 as the bands official video for the song.