Taylor Swift, Elton John, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Johnny Cash, Tina Turner, Sting, Billie Holiday, Imagine Dragons, Weezer.
What do they have in common? They’ve performed in Colorado Springs.
With the addition of Ford Amphitheater to the city’s musical landscape, we can expect to see more big names take advantage of the new 8,000-seat, open-air venue on the city’s north side. Ford’s inaugural lineup includes Cage the Elephant, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss and Dierks Bentley. The grand opening weekend will feature OneRepublic and opening act Magic Giant Friday through Sunday.
“It’ll do well if it’s booked well,” said Lulu’s Downtown owner Marc Benning. “Colorado Springs needs some name recognition. It’s not like we’re that big music town where there’s more obsession with finding new bands. We don’t have that yet. As long as they bring in bands that have name recognition they’ll do great.”
The Springs has had a colorful music scene since the now-defunct City Auditorium, which opened in 1923, began hosting shows in the ’60s. But before stars took the stage at the historic downtown building and way before Tay-Tay performed at Cowboys in 2007 was another leading lady of local music: Fannie Mae Duncan, the queen of the Cotton Club.
Duncan opened her famous jazz club at 25 W. Colorado Ave. in the ’50s, and, thanks to segregationist policies that prevented hotels from featuring or housing Black performers, she was able to snag epochal musicians to perform on her stage, including Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Etta James, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., B.B. King, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Fats Domino.
But by the mid-’70s, the club itself was no longer welcome, and the city gave Duncan $168,000 for her buildings, despite her desire to stay put. The club was razed in 1975 as part of an urban renewal program.
After the Cotton Club got up and running so did the City Auditorium, with performers like Little Richard and his Little Richard Orchestra, which swung through in 1964. One of Richard’s band members was none other than guitarist Hendrix, little known at the time. Ike Turner and Tina Turner performed in 1969, and both the Turners and Little Richard are said to have also played at the Cotton Club.
Johnny Cash and June Carter played at the City Auditorium in 1973, the Beach Boys in 1974, and Mötley Crüe in 1984. Other performers were Eric Burdon and The Animals, Yardbirds, Buffalo Springfield, Them with band member Van Morrison, The Coasters, Tommy James & the Shondells, REO Speedwagon and Paul Revere & the Raiders.
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Concerts in the building ramped up from the ’80s through the late 2010s, and included Vince Neil, Sarah McLachlan, Pantera, Def Leppard, Willie Nelson, Foo Fighters, Creed, Marilyn Manson, Waylon Jennings, Korn, Insane Clown Posse, Everclear, John Prine, Primus, Godsmack, Ozzy Osbourne, Weezer, 30 Seconds to Mars, Blue Öyster Cult, Santana and Killswitch Engage.
A few blocks southwest rose the Pikes Peak Center, opening in 1982 at 190 S. Cascade Ave. as part of the downtown economic revitalization program. With seating for 2,000, thousands of famous names have graced its stage, including Hootie and the Blowfish, Judy Collins, Pat Benatar, Wilco, Art Garfunkel, Tower of Power and Peter Frampton in the aughts. And in the ’10s and ’20s, Jackson Browne, Michael Bolton, Jewel, Tears for Fears, Bonnie Raitt, Celtic Woman, Natalie Merchant, Goo Goo Dolls, Melissa Etheridge and Huey Lewis and the News.
In 1998 another destination venue emerged — the Colorado Springs World Arena, now The Broadmoor World Arena. It provided a much larger, 9,250-seat venue that’s attracted some of the biggest names in music, including Aerosmith, NSYNC, Bob Dylan, Snoop Dogg, Cher, Alan Jackson, Journey, Carrie Underwood, Jojo Siwa, Tool, Megadeth, Def Leppard and KISS.
The late ’90s and early 2000s also saw the arrival of downtown’s 32 Bleu, at 32 S. Tejon St., and the Colorado Music Hall, which is now Stargazers Theatre and Event Center, at 10 S. Parkside Drive. 32 Bleu opened in 2002 and brought Built to Spill, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Cowboy Mouth, Modest Mouse, Gillian Welch, Rufus Wainwright, Ziggy Marley, Joan Osbourne, Gin Blossoms and many other bands to town before it closed 18 months later.
It was a much talked about spot, but ultimately, that was the problem — too much talk, not enough ticket buying.
“A lot of times people in Colorado Springs kind of want everything to be perfect,” said The Black Sheep owner Geoff Brent. “I call it the 32 Bleu syndrome, where people were obsessed and the place was only open for 18 months because people didn’t go. You’ve got to go to more shows if you want nicer places.”
Some big acts performed under the big round dome of the Colorado Music Hall beginning in the late ’90s through around 2002, including Morrissey, G Love and Special Sauce, Slipknot, 3 Doors Down and Breaking Benjamin.
Stargazers, which took over the venue and opened in 2009, has turned on the mic for plenty of big names, including Ani DiFranco, Gregory Alan Isakov, The Wailin’ Jennys, Karla Bonoff, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Loudon Wainwright III, Leon Russell, Paula Cole and Trevor Hall.
“We popped up in the middle in a venue small enough to be a club with 500 seats,” said Stargazers co-owner John Hooton.
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“We kept chugging along helping local bands get exposure. We brought in a lot of national acts, and every time we brought in a national act we’d have a local band open. Our philosophy was we can’t be a legitimate local music venue unless we support local artists as well as regional artists.”
Less than a mile down the road, with almost two decades in the business, stands The Black Sheep, which opened at 2106 E. Platte Ave. in 2005 after living many past lives as different clubs, including Pure Energy, Darkside and Industrial Nation.
“That’s important for the city’s music scene,” Brent said, “to have some place that’s a reliable experience and it’s going to be there. My whole life in Colorado Springs there’s been such a revolving door of venues.”
The Black Sheep has helped kick some smaller bands into the limelight, such as Imagine Dragons, 303, Five Finger Death Punch, 21 Pilots, Macklemore and Nathaniel Rateliff, who played in a band called Born in the Flood.
“We really do try to do our best to promote shows,” Brent said, “to do what we can to help artists get from doing less than 100 tickets their first time to selling out the Sheep and outgrowing us.”
Cowboys owner Kathy Guadagnoli has a trove of anecdotes from her years doing shows, including procuring a 17-year-old Swift. In those days, Guadagnoli competed with The Grizzly Rose, a country music venue in Denver, for the same acts on the circuit.
“Scooter Braun (Taylor’s former manager) said you book a lot of acts, you compete with Grizzly, we’ll throw you a prize — Taylor,” Guadagnoli said.
“I was the second club she held a contract for. They were taking her worldwide. She came with her mother.”
Cowboys, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, continued to pull in a long roster of popular performers in the aughts and early ’10s, including Blake Shelton, Keith Urban, Brooks & Dunn, Dwight Yoakam and Bret Michaels.
Guadagnoli only books a Christmas show these days: “These acts have gotten too expensive,” she said. “Back then I could charge $5 or $10 per ticket and lose money, but we could make money because it was packed.”
Sunshine Studio, an all-ages live music venue and recording studio co-owned by Christina Corbitt and her dad, Tony Korte, opened in 2008 and continues to bring in popular rock, hip-hop, rap and metal artists, including Static-X, Lita Ford, Coolio, Tech N9ne, Puddle of Mudd and Bad Wolves, as well as provide a stage for local bands.
“Colorado is an important market for bands because of how the tours route,” Brent said. “A lot of times west of the Mississippi you’re doing eight- to 12-hour drives instead of two- to three-hour drives. Denver is a super crucial market for bands, but Colorado Springs and Fort Collins and Boulder all play a big part, too. People don’t necessarily want to play Denver three times a year. It gives them a chance to drive east to west without having too long a gap on their tours.”
Ivywild School, at 1604 S. Cascade Ave., entered the concert market around the mid ’10s, with Isakov and Rateliff sharing a bill, and shows by Anais Mitchell, Shakey Graves, Bahamas and Cave Singers, among others.
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Lulu’s Downstairs, which took over the defunct Castaways Restaurant, a nightclub and eatery at 107 Manitou Ave. in Manitou Springs, emerged in 2019 and brought in a bounty of acts, including Robyn Hitchcock, The Samples, Cracker, The Reminders, Corb Lund and Son Volt. The Manitou location closed this year, but the business then popped up downtown in the former 32 Bleu Spot and renamed itself Lulu’s Downtown.
Benning, who first booked shows at Ivywild, came from bigger music markets, like San Francisco and Boston, where well-established music scenes were home to long-standing venues that bands dreamed of booking.
“We haven’t had a long track record in the Springs for venues to hold an inspiration for bands,” he said. “We’re starting to right now, with The Black Sheep and Vultures and what we’re doing at Lulu’s. With Ford Amphitheater it does help shine a light on live music, which is great. It’s like the abundance theory — the more that’s happening the better it is for all of us.”
Boot Barn Hall at Bourbon Brothers opened in 2018 on the city’s north side, at 13071 Bass Pro Drive, and has filled its roster with country acts including Aaron Watson, Josh Turner, Chris Cagle, Suzy Bogguss, Don McLean and Lorrie Morgan.
And Weidner Field, home to the Switchbacks, opened downtown three years ago and populates its stadium in the summer and fall with a few large concerts, including Jason Aldean, Jonas Brothers, Incubus, AJR and Billy Ray Cyrus.
“Right now it appears we’re poised to become a national class city for music,” Hooton said.
Contact the writer: 636-0270
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Publish date : 2024-08-09 01:00:00
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