Nathaniel Rateliff Celebrates a Decade With the Night Sweats at Ball Arena: Photos

Thousands of screaming fans, some in holiday attire, filled Ball Arena as they waited for what has become an annual event: the arrival of everyone’s favorite rosy-cheeked, jolly bearded man.

Santa Claus? No. The other guy who fits the description, minus the beard of white. But give Nathaniel Rateliff a few more years, and his beard will catch up with his and the Night Sweats’ success. The hometown hero and his band were at Ball Arena on Friday, December 15, for their annual show, this time celebrating a decade of the group’s music.

“It’s good to be home!” Rateliff said to the audience, with two hands outstretched as if embracing everyone in a warm hug. From there, the band hit cruise control and pumped out more than twenty songs from its catalogue, ranging from “S.O.B” and “Shake,” off the Night Sweats’ self-titled 2015 debut album, to “Survivor,” from the band’s most recent album, The Future, released in 2021.

The Night Sweats project was an experiment Rateliff launched on the Denver folk-rock scene in 2013. Denver music fans have been able to see an artist go from struggling to survive by playing gigs along South Broadway to filling the Bluebird Theater, then the Ogden and now Ball Arena and stadiums throughout the country. It’s a symbiotic gift that keeps giving every year.