At the end of this post:  U2 Live at Red Rocks Amphitheater!

June 2, 2018 (my birthday)

After spending three nights in Denver during the first part of our road trip, we left the city on the morning of my birthday. On our way out of town, we stopped at Red Rocks Park, which had been recommended by our Airbnb hosts as well as a friend of mine. The park is accessed via a winding, but scenic, two lane road……including two tunnels carved out of the rock!Red Rocks Park is a mountain park, whose borders encompass a series of red sandstone rocks, that jut out of the ground often at an angle. They were formed when a pushing of two tectonic plates caused the land above to fold. 

In 1949, the city of Denver commissioned an amphitheater to be built at the site. It is flanked by two gigantic red rocks which, if looked at from the front, each resemble the bow of a large ship.

I am including this post for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, whose theme this week is diagonal lines!

This place is really amazing. When you enter the wide patio inside the entrance to the amphitheater, unless you are actually attending a concert, you go inside the building and take the elevator to the museum and Red Rocks Hall of Fame. Just about anyone famous in the last 70 years has performed here, from the Beatles, Kenny Rogers and Joan Baez, to Guns n’ Roses (who I believe was performing that evening), to famous opera singers and symphony orchestras.

In 1964, during their first U.S. concert tour, the Beatles played at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Although over 7,000 tickets were sold, it was one of only a few concerts that was not sold out.

There are plaques with the scheduled acts for each year, going back to its opening in 1949. You can also watch a video, mostly a montage of various concerts, or stroll through the mounted photos of musical acts through the decades. 

Before the amphitheater was built, concert audiences just sat on rocks scattered around the site, sometimes having picnics.

After reading and looking at all that, we were ready to see the amphitheater itself. We had not been there more than 20 minutes when everyone was asked to leave. It was noon and they were setting up for a concert that evening. By that time, I’d taken plenty of photos and did not have any desire to descend all the stairs to the front rows!

If you have a fear of heights, best buy a ticket for one of the first few rows!

I took this shot of a guy doing pushups at the upper end of the amphitheater, probably at an elevation of about 7,000 ft.!

The amphitheater is not covered (that would ruin it completely), so if you have concert tickets and rain is predicted, be sure to bring your rain gear!  But don’t worry – Denver is actually quite dry, boasting 300 sunny days average per year! A lot of its moisture is from snow melt in the mountains. Anyway, the concerts are mostly in the summer, extending into the fall, until it gets too cold to hold events at an outdoor venue.

Before we left, we were invited to sign this large banner.

Besides the amphitheater, Red Rocks Park has a number of hiking trails that can be explored, but in spite of my desire to do a bit of hiking, Dale was anxious to be on the road. We planned to get to Grand Junction, at the far western side of the state of Colorado, by late afternoon, and there was considerable mountain driving to be taken into account.

Scenic view of Denver from the parking lot

Hiking trail

Another boulder at Red Rocks, on our way out

U2 Live at Red Rocks in 1983 (a rare rainy night!)