Pretty Lights To Headline Red Rocks for Fifth Consecutive Year
It’s no wonder that Derek Vincent Smith has sold out the most iconic musical venue in the country four consecutive years in a row – Pretty Light’s has serious skill. Its just been announced that he’ll be back at Red Rocks, for the fifth time. Just a day after dropping his new album, these news are sure to spread like wildfire, which means you ought to get your tickets ASAP because it’s guaranteed to sell out yet again.
If your part of PL’s fan club, then you can get them today, April 23 at 10 AM. Otherwise, you’re gonna have to wait till this Friday, April 25th when they go on sale at all Ticketmaster outlets. You can choose between August 8 or August 9, although our personal recommendation is go for both. PL is sue to explore all facets of his sound – new and old – in the two days. “Over the course of both nights all PL styles – new and old – will be explored and evolved,” says Derek. Joining him will be 13 members of the Colorado Symphony and other “special guests.”
And the two nights lived up to the hype. Smith brought out a full live band alongside members of the Colorado Symphony and guests from Lettuce for a genuinely orchestral take on his catalog, turning tracks that started as sample-based beats into full-blown live arrangements. It was a huge step up production-wise from his earlier Red Rocks runs, and it set the tone for how Pretty Lights would approach the venue going forward — leaning more and more into live instrumentation rather than just DJ sets.
That approach clearly worked. Pretty Lights kept the Red Rocks streak going well past this fifth appearance, and by 2017 the run had grown into eight consecutive years headlining the venue, an almost unheard-of stretch for any artist, let alone one working primarily in electronic and sample-based music. Red Rocks shows became something of an annual pilgrimage for Pretty Lights fans, with the amphitheater’s natural acoustics pairing perfectly with Smith’s soul- and funk-sampling production style.
Looking back, this 2014 announcement marked a turning point where Pretty Lights stopped being just “another EDM headliner” at Red Rocks and started being treated as one of the venue’s defining modern residencies, right alongside legacy acts that had played there for decades. The Colorado Symphony collaboration teased in this announcement became a template Smith would return to again and again, blurring the line between a dance music show and a full live orchestral performance in a way very few of his peers were doing at the time.
