Snapshot: The Denver Coliseum
With the National Western Stock Show growing in popularity — and outgrowing its home at the stockyards — the Denver Coliseum opened in late 1951, giving the stock show a facility dedicated to rodeo, bull-riding, calf-roping, barrel-racing, and more. Praised for its “lack of view-obstructing pillars [and its] wide aisles and roomy seats,” the new coliseum was considered “perfect” by The Denver Post (qtd. in Frei). When the stock show was not in session, however, the 11,000-seat coliseum was the ideal venue for all sorts of events that could not be held anywhere else in Denver. The Ice Follies and Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus were mainstays at the coliseum for decades; my sister and I, in the charge of our parents, attended both events at least once, seeing gold-medal winner Peggy Fleming skate with the Follies in 1968. Sports were also big at the coliseum, with minor league hockey, professional boxing, high-school basketball, and, for a short time, pro basketball (until the Denver Rockets of the ABA fled to the Auditorium Arena) all calling the Denver Coliseum home.
But outside the two-week-long National Western Stock Show every January, rock ‘n roll is perhaps most associated with the Denver Coliseum. In April of 1956, with “Heartbreak Hotel” sitting at #1 on the Billboard chart, a young Elvis Presley appeared at the coliseum for two sold-out shows. Rockology’s Stephen Shutts, in his 2019 mini-documentary on the Denver Coliseum, says few arenas that hosted Elvis in the fifties still stand; the Denver Coliseum is one of these rarities, thus occupying a special place in Elvis lore. Elvis also played the coliseum in 1970 and 1973.
As rock ‘n roll transformed itself into rock, all sorts of soon-to-be-legendary bands appeared at the Denver Coliseum. The Rolling Stones first played the coliseum in 1965. [1] After making its North American debut at Denver’s Auditorium Arena in 1968, Led Zeppelin played the coliseum in 1970 and 1972. And The Who brought its high-decibel show to the coliseum in 1971. Guitarist Pete Townshend recalls that The Who routinely built the West Coast legs of its U.S. tours around single Denver shows. “We relied on Denver and Barry Fey,” says Townshend, “and they never let us down” (Fey 7).
Fey, Denver’s esteemed rock music promoter, booked many acts into the Denver Coliseum; Creedence Clearwater Revival was his first in 1969, followed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Santana, and Fleetwood Mac before the decade was over. Many other big name rock acts appeared at the coliseum through the years; a select few are Deep Purple, Cream, the Grateful Dead, the Monkees, and the Osmonds, Jethro Tull, ZZ Top, Steely Dan, the Moody Blues, and the Eagles. And with no end in sight, rock continues at the coliseum: Slayer, Pantera, and Megadeth, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, and Slipknot, Disturbed, Mudvayne, and Chevelle have all performed at the Denver Coliseum in recent years.
Fey, in his characteristically blunt way, says that as a “rock venue, the Coliseum was a dump. The sound was terrible. It smelled like the stockyards and slaughterhouses across the street. Fans hated it. Bands hated it. But . . . it was the only venue of that size in Denver” (187). This is much too harsh, however, for the Denver Coliseum — a modest-looking concrete structure set in an unattractive part of town with elevated I-70 seemingly inches away — was built expressly to give the stock show more space for its western-themed events. And yet for 50 weeks out of every year, when the stock show is not underway, the coliseum hosts an incredibly wide-ranging schedule of events, providing Denver with one entertainment spectacle after another without fail.
Now approaching its 70th year, the Denver Coliseum has stood longer than the Auditorium Arena and nearly three-times as long as the now-demolished McNichols Sports Arena. The coliseum is a Denver landmark and a rock ‘n roll touchstone to many Denverites, those who stand in awe of all the spectacular, thrilling music made inside an exceedingly unpretentious building.
Above piece excerpted from the forthcoming It’s Only Music: A Musical and Historical Memoir.
[1] On June 16, 2011, the Rolling Stones played two shows on the same day at the Denver Coliseum (Fey 57).
