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7/06/03 7/07/03 7/08/03 7/09/03 7/11/03 7/06/03 Red Rocks Morrison, CO We're back. They tell me that Grateful Dead have played here a record 25 times. We are all excited to feel the power of this magical place. I found some interesting background on Red Rocks at the Denver Gov Site;
  We feel the altitude, big time. Tonight is a shaky start. It feels like a hangover mixed with a bit of seasickness thrown in, no extra charge. There is a sense of uneasiness in the groove. I know this won't last and it finally goes away. Adjusting to the mile high club the second set is reassuring. St. Stephen > High Green Chilly Winds seemed to give us the momentum we needed to finish strong.  top of page 7/07/03 Red Rocks Morrison, CO Had a nice lunch with the local journalists at the Denver Press Club. It was the first of many activities scheduled this week to promote Songcatchers.   Bill and I have had amazing rhythmic moments and enjoyed the interaction of all our guests' immensely. Kitaro, my Japanese brother comes down from Boulder to pay us a surprise visit tonight. The godfather of new age music is really a Taiko drummer in disguise. He slams into the beast with such ferocity that it startled all of us. He is a quiet, Zen type of man in his day job as a mild mannered synth player, but with Bill and I he turns on the heat. I have known Kitaro for 20 years and co-produced one of his CD's The Light of the Spirit. We also worked on the score for a Walter Cronkite Report, The Americas Cup back in the 80's. Jerry and Zakir Hussain were also on that soundtrack. Kitaro is a class act, and it was great to see him and hear his thunder. He calls me "Bakudan", which means large bomb exploding. I guess I bring out the loud in him.   top of page 7/08/03 Red Rocks Morrison, CO Each night the music has soared to great heights and has revealed a new reality that seems boundless. The possibilities for growth are astounding. Joan has been a great addition to the front line. Her rendering of Comes a Time tonight was stunning. It followed Space > a weird version of Happy Birthday, as all of the kids came out to give her flowers and a birthday cake with candles glowing.  It was a very nice moment. She tore into Lovelight tonight as well, getting down on her knees to sing it. What a great way for her and all of us to celebrate her birthday.  top of page 7/09/03 Denver, CO Today was our day off but we were all pretty busy. Phil did a record setting blood drive here in Denver, while Howard and I set off with our escort Lisa to conquer the local media to promote the book. We hit all of the morning and noon time television news shows.    Had the CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corp) in the room for a face to face in the afternoon. Then on to one of my favorite bookstores, Tattered Cover Books, for a talk and book signing. We were greeted by Margaret Maupin, who is charming and dedicated to making this one of the finest Independent bookstores in the world.   Here's the rap on Tattered Cover Books Over twenty-five years ago, Joyce Meskis purchased a small bookshop in Denver's Cherry Creek district. By giving it a cozy atmosphere, offering an eclectic selection of books and providing attentive customer service, she soon turned it into a haven for readers of all ages. As interest in a broader selection of titles grew, Joyce began to push back the walls to make room for more books, expanding several times over twelve years. Finally, with the help of loyal customers, the Tattered Cover moved into its present location at the corner of First Avenue and Milwaukee Street, just two blocks from the original bookshop. With 3 floors of books, an extensive newsstand, a comfortable coffee shop, and the Fourth Story Restaurant, it's a real book lover's paradise. While we were at the signing, a bunch of the crew and band members went to a ball game here in Denver. The definite highlight was when my daughter Reya caught a foul ball hit by Larry Walker of the Rockies. Although the Giants lost, it couldn't have been a better game. top of page 7/11/03 Red Rocks Morrison, CO Went to the Denver Art Museum this morning with Caryl and Reya. During our visit I found the following Paiute dance song The wind stirs the willows, The wind stirs the grasses, The whirlwind, the whirlwind The snowy earth comes gliding, The snowy earth comes gliding, The rocks are ringing, The rocks are ringing in the mountains... It has been an amazing run here at red rocks. The story is the music and the sense of place. The dry hot wind billowing up from the amphitheater, whippings down the canyon. This wind comes in a flash and then it's gone just as quickly as it appeared. It's as if the spirits of the rocks were talking to us. We become aware of the forces and lean into the groove. The sound is magnificent. The rocks shapeshift the sound into beautiful contours. After these days it is a fond memory of this run that I will take with me. It has been a musical odyssey for us. We have experienced a rebirth in sprit on this tour. The band has never played this consistently for this length of time. Looking forward to a bit of a rest, then ramping back up for the second leg and beyond. As Hunter would say... Full head of steam Look out the wind blows high Full head of steam Grab your hat & wave goodbye... Red Rocks Colorado from the AFC Red Rocks has a history that goes back a bit... Nearby dinosaur tracks tell of the Jurassic period of 160 million years ago. Fossil fragments of the giant 40-foot sea serpent, Plerisosaur, the marine reptile Mossaur, and flying reptiles have all been located in the park. In fact, dinosaur tracks can still be seen along the north edge of the park. The Native American (the Ute and Arapaho Tribes) used the area as a spiritual campground. The natural depression in the center of the rock formations offered an arena for ceremonial dances. The drums and other musical instruments would have resounded amidst the rocks in an extraordinary way, adding layers of mystical sound to the spiritual music. And the incredible view of the plains from that ceremonial area below is still awe-inspiring today. Just one day (and 107 years ago) before the Grateful Dead concert, two major floods hit Morrison, Colorado, from the flooding Bear Creek. And exactly 25 years ago to the day, the Dead was again playing Red Rocks-July 7 and 8, 1978! Red Rocks amphitheater has been home to a bunch of wild stories and connections... Rumor has it that the Beatles played to a house that was only half full, but some say that the concert was over capacity, and that many people simply hadn't bought tickets-according to some, since the venue wasn't usually used for rock concerts, there wasn't the same kind of barriers you find at rock concerts now, so thousands of people could have attended without tickets. This sounds plausible, especially since we know that when the Beatles played at Red Rocks in 1963, people were outraged at the price of the tickets-- $6.60. And sold out concerts that were crashed by thousands of extras is a story that made the news in 1971, when a Jethro Tull concert turned into a scene involving tear gas. But even with the disaster, the concert probably wasn't as scary as the Native American raid and scalp dance in Denver-in May 1860, over 1,000 Arapaho warriors were celebrating a successful raid on the Utes. Red Rocks has been the home to many a memorable event, --in 1983, U2 performed a show that was referred to by guitarist The Edge as "a turning point" in the band's career. The show was made famous on the Under a Blood Red Sky album and video. Red Rocks is a geologically formed, open-air Amphitheater that is not duplicated anywhere in the world. The natural design of the Amphitheater consists of two, three hundred-foot monoliths (Ship Rock and Creation Rock) that create an acoustically amazing space. If you want to know about the "curse" that fell over Red Rocks years ago, or about the tale of the fabled "Hatchet Lady," you can check out the book written by local historian Thomas J. Noel and veteran music critic G. Brown, From Dinosaurs To Rock 'N Roll. Many Indian tribes made their home in Colorado-- plains tribes included the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, and Kiowa. There were Navajo in southwestern Colorado, and Apache often moving into the state from New Mexico and Arizona. The mountain dwelling Utes appear to have been the only indigenous tribe of Colorado. The American Folklife Center has recordings of Ute and Navajos that were made in Colorado in the 1940's, as well as tapes of Navajo Creation Chants, originally recorded on 693 cylinders in 1929. Joanne Rasi top of page |
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