WTF RedRocks?!
Updated: Aug 4
This old couple tried to fight me at Redrocks.
And everyone knows you don't bring that kind of cabbage patch energy to Redrocks!
Take that shit to Fiddlers Green. Ball Arena. Your city's free concert series.
I’ve lived in Denver for a decade and have been to all kinds of shows at Redrocks. I wish I could've gone to more.
STS9, String Cheese Incident, The Revivalists, Anjunadeep, Deadmau5, and Citizen Cope have some of my favorite shows.
If I'm being honest, regardless of who is playing, it's a great time mostly because of the crowd.
Everyone there is great. Tremendous even.
So what I figured was that after a number of shows, everyone kind of knew the Unspoken Rules of Redrocks.
I guess I figured wrong.
Which leads me to our most recent show. Trevor Hall.
It was awful.
Not Trevor Hall, he was great. Highly recommend. Transcendent.
The total experience outside of the performance had me questioning if Redrocks had changed.
In the past, this is what I've experienced Redrocks to be:
*Security is always very chill
*People respect your space
*Everyone is conscious of each other's energy
*and it's one of the peak places to experience the culture that is Colorado.
But what really makes RedRocks so unique is not only the enormous rock structures rising up on either side of you.
Or the perfect natural acoustics.
Or the view over the stage of the entirety of Denver.
It's the crowd.
Most every show at the venue is GA, meaning no assigned seats.
Never been a problem for me, there's lots of room, people understand.
This particular show was incredibly packed.
Not the biggest deal
My girlfriend and I found a spot where we could stand on the side by these giant planters.
So she runs to the restroom when this visibly drunk woman informs me I'm in her husband's spot.
There's no spots on Redrocks!
I don't see a husband anywhere so I smile back. I've seen old drunk women before, I know the protocol.
I continue enjoying the magic of music happening in front of me.
She says it again, this time with a finger pointed at my face, the red in her face getting redder and the shiny in her face getting shinier. Like a fucking cherry tomato on Mt. Shasta getting ready to pop.
I was stunned.
I've never had a finger in my face here.
Typically, I make friends and then strangers offer me "chocolates."
After the third time, her husband did in fact appear and I guess I was in his spot because his big ass barrel shaped body was touching mine, trying to push me away like we were playing fucking bumper cars.
"Sorry ,"he said, "I'm a little heavier set than I used to be."
Well that's probably because you're downing IPAs faster than the guitarist is playing solos. You look like a mozzarella ball.
It's not that he was obese, I won't fat shame. He just gave off the parboiled look of a man made mostly of plump, moistened cheese. Potatoey.
So the wife throws her fists up and it's two against one really fast. And she looked like a cinna stick.
I'm used to keeping my cool. I was in tech sales for years. I've invested $10,000 into my own sales training. I know what to do in tense situations. Even when I don't.
I didn't know what to do.
This has never happened at RedRocks. There was no neural pathway that knew how to handle this.
I wasn't in the "state of mind" to deal with it, so I walked away, my girlfriend and I went to the other side of the place, the ampitheater.
You don't mess with people like that at RedRocks
I mean it's Colorado after all...
...when the weed smoke clears, the last thing you want to do is...uh...ruin someone's..."journey."
I had heard some complaints from others about the show being generally disruptive after the fact and maybe it was a one off...
But if you go to RedRocks, just be cool, you don't know what people are (on) going through.
Comments