DCMR was fortunate to be on location at Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, Colorado, for the sold out String Cheese Incident (SCI) and Keller Williams show on July 20th. On Saturday night, String Cheese played to a capacity crowd of 9,525. 

Mother nature cooperated by getting the thunderstorm out of the way before the show, allowing the doors to open after only a brief delay. Once the rain stopped, the audience was able to take off their rain gear, which in many cases revealed festival type outfits. There were several people juggling and hula hooping in the crowd both before and during the show.

For the first set Keller Williams and Jamie Janover were joined by String Cheese Incident (The Keller Williams Incident) who played the entire album “Breathe”. Breathe was originally released 20 years ago on the then new Sci Fidelity Records label. In honor of the 20th anniversary, Breathe was re-released as a double album on vinyl for the first time. It is now available online.

The String Cheese Incident are currently celebrating their 25th anniversary and was introduced by Jack Mento to begin the second set. The set started with Kyle Hollingsworth’s solo of “You’ve Got The World” on the keytar. Hollingsworth was quoted saying “I made it out of my keyboard cubicle and jammed on my keytar like it was 1986!” From there they went into “Rhythm of the Road” and then a cover of “I know you Rider.” Hollingsworth who is an avid homebrewer also told us about SCIPA which is a collaboration beer with The String Cheese Incident and Oskar Blues Brewery. SCIPA is available at select shows on the tour and at the Oskar Blues taproom.

The evening’s third set got started with “All We Got”and the seemingly autobiographical “Colorado Bluebird Sky” Michael Kang introduced Horns Bruceby, the three-piece horn section, who joined in for several songs starting with “Jellyfish”.

The show concluded with a 15 minute “Lunar Landing” space-themed jam to honor the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Keith Moseley started the tribute off with Close Encounters theme song and flew through other space themed songs including Star Wars and Star Trek (both Next Generation and the original) theme songs. They finished the jam with “Sprach Zarathustra” from 2001 A Space Odyssey and “Rollover”

The other shows in this 3 night run included Friday night playing with Cory Wong. That show marked the 40th time that SCI has played at Red Rocks. The Sunday night SCI show featured the Del McCoury Band opening to continue the year long celebration of Del McCoury’s 80th birthday with SCI singing Happy Birthday to Del. Joining the band at the beginning of the second set was the Colorado based Celtic Steps River dancers who accompanied SCI during Rivertrance 

Red Rocks is truly one of the most amazing concert venues in America. The first concert at Red Rocks was in the early 1900’s. It opened in its current form in 1941 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2015 by the National Park Service and Department of the Interior. Red Rocks Amphitheater is in Colorado’s Red Rocks Park which is a 738 acre park 6,450 feet above sea level. Called a “geological phenomenon” it is the only naturally-occurring, acoustically perfect amphitheatre in the world. Red Rocks should be a bucket list item for music enthusiasts who like outdoor concerts.