The Ten Biggest Denver Music Stories of 2022

Music has been bountiful this year, with everyone reveling in the opportunity to see live shows again. Concert-goers flocked to Levitt Pavilion's fifty free concerts this past summer, while Red Rocks had another packed lineup that included a South Park concert. And while other venues also celebrated openings, reopenings and milestone anniversaries, some Denver haunts didn't fare as well.

But the music never stopped. Here are the ten biggest music stories from 2022:

Levitt Pavilion Celebrates Five Years
While Red Rocks may be the most well-known metro Denver venue, Levitt Pavilion has its own special place in the hearts of music lovers. The sprawling, 7,500-capacity outdoor venue hosts fifty free concerts each year and has championed local acts as much as it has big names, starting on July 20, 2017, with performances from Slim Cessna's Auto Club, Halden Wofford and the Hi*Beams and Andy Thomas' Dust Heart. The nonprofit, which also has venues in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, California, Connecticut and South Dakota, celebrated five years in Denver with five concerts over five days in July. Performers ranged from the New Respects with Joseph Lamar, Jessica Lea Mayfield with despAIR Jordan, Drive-By Truckers with Buffalo Nichols, Mo Lowda with the Holdfast. and Joyce From the Future, and The Abrams with Casey James Prestwood. Here's to many more years!
The Fox's Thirtieth Anniversary
Levitt wasn't the only venue celebrating a milestone. The Fox Theatre in Boulder celebrated its thirtieth anniversary on March 6 with George Porter Jr. and Dumpstaphunk performing the music of the Meters —because what's better than some funky jams to honor Boulder's preeminent jam-band venue? The Fox opened in 1992 just as the jam-band scene was hitting a peak, with Don Strasburg joining forces with five college pals. “We wanted to have the greatest place in the world, where we could hang out, see the greatest music in the world and have a ton of fun,” Strasburg recalled. And they definitely succeeded.
Sonic Guild Opens a Colorado Chapter
The nonprofit Sonic Guild, formerly known as Black Fret (it announced the name change at its ninth annual ball on December 3), was created eight years ago in Austin, Texas, as a membership-based nonprofit that hosts private concerts and raises funds to aid local musicians' careers. While the organization usually confines itself to a city, Sonic Guild is covering the whole Front Range, choosing its first class of musicians for the Colorado chapter in May. They include Big Richard, iZCALLi, Alysia Kraft, Kayla Marque, Zoe Berman, Bevin Luna, Claire Heywood, the Sickly Hecks, Veronica May and N3ptune, who was announced as the recipient of $7,000 at this year's ball. Sonic Guild will host its official Founding 100 launch party at the Skylark Lounge on January 28.
KUVO's Changing of the Guard
After 35 years at KUVO 89.3 FM, Carlos Lando announced in August that he was stepping down as the jazz station's general manager, but he'll act as an adviser to KUVO and continue his fan-favorite morning show, The Morning Set With Carlos Lando. Lando has spent the bulk of his fifty-year radio career at KUVO, which he joined as a program director in 1987, two years after the independent public station was founded. Lando encouraged its shift to jazz while keeping a Latin flavor; over the years, KUVO earned numerous accolades, including JazzWeek's Jazz Station of the Year. Lando became president of the station in 2012, a year before KUVO merged with Rocky Mountain PBS, further expanding its reach. In 2019, the outlets created hip-hop station The Drop, and that station's founding member, Nikki Swarn, will take over Lando's GM role.
New Swallow Hill President and CEO
KUVO wasn't the only spot with a shift in leadership. Swallow Hill Music, a nonprofit that's hosted concerts and provided music education in Denver since 1979, hired Canadian musician and nonprofit executive Aengus Finnan to lead the Swallow Hill Music Association as its president and CEO. Finnan, who started April 1, had been the executive director of Folk Alliance International in Kansas City for the past eight years. Raised in Ireland, he studied theater, education and visual art in Canada, and was an educator in Indigenous Arctic communities and the founding artistic director of the Shelter Valley Folk Festival in Ontario. Finnan's also a musician who spent a decade touring North America as a singer-songwriter. “Although music is the heart of the matter," he told us in September, "at a higher view, it really is about community engagement, and music is one way into the broader story of the community." AEG Purchases the Gothic
While the Anschutz Entertainment Group has been operating the Gothic Theatre for the past decade, it invested even more in the Denver music scene when it bought the venue for more than $2 million in late November. The former movie palace, located at 3263 South Broadway in Englewood, has been a strong thread in the Mile High's cultural fabric for nearly a century, originally opening as a cinema in the 1920s.
South Park Hosted a Concert at Red Rocks
South Park celebrated its 25th anniversary this August, and creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone did it in style with a once-in-a-lifetime South Park-themed concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on August 9 and 10, with the second night broadcast on Comedy Central on the show's anniversary, August 13. The concert included performances by Primus, the band led by prolific bassist Les Claypool, who created the South Park theme song, as well as Ween, one of Parker and Stone's favorite bands that have made appearances on the show. And Parker and Stone were solidified in Colorado history, with Governor Jared Polis taking the stage early in the night to declare August 10 as the state's official South Park Day. As Stone confirmed on stage: "This is the best night of our lives!"
Red Rocks Settles Wheelchair Access Discrimination Lawsuit
Everyone's favorite Colorado venue is endeavoring to become more accessible after settling a class-action lawsuit filed by six plaintiffs in December 2016. The lawsuit against Live Nation, AEG, PBS12 and the City of Denver, which owns the venue, alleged that Red Rocks discriminated against wheelchair users because they had to pay more for tickets and were not provided the same access and service as other patrons. With the court on the plaintiffs' side, the settlement requires the concert promoters to pay a civil penalty and has Denver refunding the $47,950.90 in overcharges on a total of 1,817 tickets for 178 events. Red Rocks has only 121 wheelchair-accessible seats, located in the first and final rows, and they were often bought up by scalpers; in 2018, the venue implemented a new ticketing system to stop that practice.
Violations, Violations, Violations
Red Rocks wasn't the only venue to land in hot water. Sancho's Broken Arrow and So Many Roads, both Grateful Dead-themed rock venues known for museum-quality memorabilia, were both slapped with citations by the City of Denver. While So Many Roads agreed to close for a month because of alcohol and controlled-substance violations, it reopened in December. Sancho's, however, simply surrendered its license on October 26 after being cited with four counts of dealing cocaine, two counts related to an unlicensed security guard, two counts of allowing underage alcohol consumption, and three charges related to the conduct of an establishment, including allowing people to consume cannabis on site. And near the University of Denver, Gravel Pit also agreed to surrender its liquor license.

Founded in RiNo in October 2020, Number Thirty Eight accumulated a whopping fourteen noise violations and was ordered to host only acoustic acts outdoors. The venue is hoping to change those rules, though; on January 8, the city will hear its application to modify noise restrictions for its cabaret license.
Venue Openings and Reopenings
Even during the tail end of a pandemic, the music never stops. Dierks Bentley's Whiskey Row opened on New Year's Eve last year; it will soon be joined by more entertainment options in the 1900 block of Market Street, including Riot House and a new venue in the old El Chapultepec. A revamped Ophelia's Electric Soapbox reopened in April for the first time since the pandemic shutdown; The Velvet Elk Lounge in Boulder expanded to add a music venue; and Dog House Music Studios opened a new music venue called The End in Lafayette. La Rumba celebrated its 25th anniversary in November, and popular jazz club Dazzle is moving into the Denver Center for the Performing Arts Complex early in the new year.