Tourist music scenes in Denver. Red Rocks Amphitheater is Denver's most famous concert venue. We have what's been declared by every body as the #1 concert venue in America. In fact they have won so often,...
We have what's been declared by every body as the #1 concert venue in America. In fact they have won so often, that they retired it from the competition and now the award is named after the Red Rocks Amphitheater. This is a 9000 seat outdoor arena that was literally carved out of gigantic red rock boulders. It's the only completely natural amphitheater in the world, with a flanking rock behind it that bounces the sound out into the audience. Most people know it from the band U2, who did their "Under a Blood Red Sky" video there. It's been in John Tesh videos. They have a full lineup of concerts and everyone from the Beatles to Bruce Springsteen has been there. We have a really fun little hole in the wall Jazz club called El Chapultepec. Every great Jazz band in the world has played at El Chapultepec. Mariachi bands used to play there. One night immigration came in and arrested the band and there was a Jazz group waiting to play, so they went on. From that moment on, it became a Jazz club. Bill Clinton has played saxophone in there. Any Jazz musician who comes to Denver and is playing a set somewhere else always ends up in El Chapultepec at night. There are great bands there all the time. It is located in LoDo. Westward.org is the best place to look for that. We have an old small arena that has been converted into a concert hall without seats and Bob Dylan and everybody you can think of has played there. For a small hall, it has had such phenomenal people. I wouldn't think LoDo is a music center. Everything is kind of spread out in the music side.
In the 1940s, when every group in the country traveled cross country by train, they would do a set in Denver because it was the only stop on the train. The same is kind of true now. Almost anytime there is a major touring concert, they do it in Denver because of the Central location, and because we serve such a huge area. We are only a city of two and a half million, but we have the amenities of a city of four million because we really serve that many people. We serve all the huge surrounding areas that don't have amenities like sports teams. Denver has seven professional sports teams and three new stadiums. We are the only city with the same amount of teams and stadiums as Philadelphia. It's because there isn't another baseball team or a football team or hockey arena for six hundred miles in any direction. We also have better shopping on the city outskirts because it is not just shopping for the people who live here, but for the people in the region.
