As a Canadian kid growing up way back in the 1960s and 70s, I was always fascinated by a section of our country that seemed a little different than the rest. It was a portion of southern Alberta that had been dubbed as The Badlands. The terminology evoked images of danger and possessed a sense of foreboding in my young mind. I can clearly remember being a school-aged boy back in those pre-Internet times and being tasked with conducting research into some aspect of Prairie life. I opted to focus on The Badlands. I wrote a letter requesting any information available on The Badlands from the Royal Tyrrell Museum. This museum is home to the largest collection of dinosaur bones and fossils in Canada. You can imagine my delight when a small package from the museum arrived at my doorstep several weeks later. This package contained pamphlets, postcards, stickers and a couple of small plastic replica dinosaurs. I may have been approaching my teens at the time but the excitement I felt upon opening this package was real. There is just something about dinosaurs that fascinated me and which continues to fascinate people from all over the world to this day.
One of the reasons that we know anything at all about these prehistoric creatures is because of the geology of our planet. Without going into a long lesson on plate tectonics, one of the things I learned during that school project was how dinosaurs and prehistoric organic material became fossilized and why so many of the most amazing discoveries in this field of study happened at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The short, simplified explanation goes a little something like this. Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, the plates that make up the Earth’s crust have shifted and moved against one another. This movement has changed the shape of the land upon which we live. In some cases, it has caused sections of land to break away from each other and become separated by bodies of water. In other places, the pressure exerted by these tectonic plates pushing against each other has forced millions of tonnes of rock upward which, in time, has resulted in the formation of mountain chains. One of the places where tectonic plate movement has caused mountains to form is in western North America. The mountain chain in question is called The Rocky Mountains. The Rocky Mountains extend from the near Arctic, in the north, all the way to the edge of New Mexico in the southern United States. The process of the formation of The Rocky Mountains happened over millions of years ago and continues to evolve to this very day. As part of this process, sediment from the Great Plains and Prairies became swept up into the movement of stones. Over time, all of the organic materials found in this sediment became fossilized. This included species of plant life that existed hundreds of millions of years ago, as well as the body parts of creatures who lived at that time. So, what does any of this have to do with music and music venues? Hang in there. I am getting to that.
In the mid-1800s, the scientific field of paleontology was in its infancy in North America. Two of the leading paleontologists at the time were men named Othneil Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. These two scientists were rivals in what became known in scientific circles as the “Bone Wars”. The two scientists competed with each other, often using nefarious tactics to undermine the other, to see who could dig up the most intact dinosaur skeletons and identify the most unique and distinct species of dinosaurs, too. One of the biggest discoveries ever made in America happened outside of a small town in Colorado called Morrison. At this site, the nearly complete skeleton of a Stegosaurus was found by an amateur geologist and naturalist named Arthur Lakes. Lakes sent samples of the bones he found to both men, setting off a gold rush-like frenzy of excavation and discovery in the area. Like The Badlands of Alberta, the area around Morrison, Colorado was found to be teeming with fossils and dinosaur bones. That this should be the case has turned out to not be surprising because Morrison, Colorado, like Canada’s Badlands, sits at the foot of The Rocky Mountain chain, at a point known in geology circles as the Fountain Formation. The particular stretch of stone where the stegosaurus skeleton was unearthed is now known as the Morrison Formation.
The Morrison Formation is the spot where the American plains meet the twisted, contorted stone of the mountains. Because of the violent nature of plate tectonics, some portions of the earth’s crust have become rotated and even flipped on their sides over time. This is clearly evident near the town of Morrison, itself. For at this site, there are two large monolithic stone outcrops that are twisted on their sides as they jut out into the sky. These two outcrops are both larger than the stone that makes up Niagara Falls. One set of stone has been dubbed by locals as the Ship Rock and the other as Creation Rock. These rocks form an almost V-formation. In the early 1900s, it was discovered that the space that existed between these giant red sandstone rocky outcrops was well-suited for acoustics. Sound traveled with great clarity between the outcrops, outward into the empty space that existed between them. For many years in the first quarter of the 1900s, concerts and spoken word recitals/speeches would be given by performers and orators standing on the bare ground at the base of the twin outcrops. In time, it was decided that a formal amphitheatre should be constructed on the site. Thus, after the end of the Great Depression, as part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal, a piece of legislation was passed that established an organization called the Civilian Conservation Corps. The purpose of this organization was to gather together a large skilled workforce (of mainly young unemployed men) who would be tasked with the preservation of nationally significant historical and geological sites. One of the most prominent projects undertaken by the Civilian Conservation Corps was the construction of the amphitheatre that became known as Red Rocks Amphitheater.
Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado opened in 1941. It has a seating capacity of slightly over 9500. It is an amphitheater that is open to the elements and, as such, has been home to concerts that have taken place under the bright light of a full moon, under starlight, in rain and in snow, as well as in the searing heat of the summer sun. All who perform at Red Rocks marvel at the crystal clear acoustics and the stunning visual imagery of performing between the giant red sandstone rocks known as Ship Rock and Creation Rock. Almost anyone and everyone of note in the world of music has performed at Red Rocks. One of the most noteworthy early concerts came when The Beatles stopped by on their ill-fated final North American tour. As proof of the bad fortunes that would befall the band on this tour, their stop at Red Rocks was the only concert they gave that was not completely sold out, coming in at barely two-thirds full. In the 1970s, rock band Jethro Tull performed. However, overly enthusiastic fans of the band who were unable to secure their own tickets ended up storming the ticket gates, causing a riot and forcing the authorities to call in the riot squad to quell the disturbance and protect the site. The Governor of Colorado responded to the Jethro Tull riot at Red Rocks by banning all rock concerts in the state for almost a full decade! I first became aware of the existence of Red Rocks when I discovered the band U2 in the early 1980s. One of the first albums of theirs that I owned was called Live Under a Blood Red Sky. It was a live recording of a concert the band gave at Red Rocks. One of the first music videos that the band produced in the newly-minted MTV era was for a song called “Sunday Bloody Sunday” that was videotaped at Red Rocks in the pouring rain, Bono’s breath clearly visible against the torchlit backdrop. The stunning visual impact of this video helped launch U2 into the stratosphere of the music world. Since then, many other artists and bands have performed there in the hopes of capturing that same sort of magical moment. I will link to a few such performances below.
Our world is an endlessly fascinating and beautiful place if you give yourself the time to actually stop and look. For anyone who marvels at the technological brilliance of a venue such as The Sphere in Las Vegas, you can have it. I would far rather soak in the natural beauty of a venue such as the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado any day of the week. As a bonus, either before your concert begins or when the time for your concert is over, you can explore the Red Rocks National Park and learn about the geological science behind how such a marvelous venue came to be and even dig for some fossils and dinosaur bones of your own as well. For a town with a population of less than 1000, the custodial responsibilities of preserving the geologically-sensitive dinosaur grounds, along with running and maintaining the gorgeous naturally-occurring Red Rocks Amphitheater must be awesome. But, to the credit of the citizens of Morrison, they are doing an excellent job. You don’t often hear tell of Morrison, Colorado being a must-see tourist destination when people consider traveling in America but it most certainly is a place that will leave you awestruck at the sight of it all. Of all of the manmade concert venues the world has to offer, few can rival Red Rocks for acoustic purity and visual beauty. If you are a music lover then a visit to Red Rocks has to be on your bucket list. It sure is on my own list.
If you have ever been to Red Rocks Amphitheater or have a video clip of a concert performance there that you particularly like, feel free to tell us all about it in the comments box below. Thanks, as always, for reading my words. Your presence here is appreciated.
The link to the official website for Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado can be found here.
The link to the official website for the Morrison Natural History Museum can be found here.
The link to the official website for Red Rocks National Park can be found here.
The link to the video for the song “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2 performed live at Red Rocks can be found here.
The link to the video for the song “I Will Wait” by Mumford and Sons recorded live at Red Rocks can be found here.
The link to the video for country star Zach Bryan singing at Red Rocks in the snow can be found here.
The link to a news article about the Jethro Tull riot can be found here.
The link to a short animated video about the scientific feud between paleontologists Cope and Marsh that led to the Bone Wars can be found here.
The link to the official website for the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta (which sparked my interest in all things dinosaur-related as a young boy) can be found here.
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I’ve never been to Red Rocks Amphitheatre but it’s one spectacular looking place I’d love to visit some day. Here’s a cool 2016 video of Drive-By Truckers performing at the venue. According to setlist.fm, they played there on August 20 of that year.
What a view, eh?! Spectacular. Always good to see people dancing at a show. Thanks for sharing.
The Moody Blues were a bit older when they got to Red Rocks, but I think they still sounded pretty good. It was hard deciding which song to play for you, but I don’t think it really mattered, they all sounded very good.
https://youtu.be/iyN_m8VyrY8?feature=shared
I’ll never get there now, my travelling days are over. So if you get there, Tom, hold up a peace sign (✌) for me, please. It is my signature move at a concert.