8 and 9 September 2023, Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO
And then, at last, I was there.
At last I got to my bucket list concert venue, at last I was initiated into the Bramily ritual of travelling to Colorado and climbing up and down and all around at Red Rocks. It all happened magically and perfectly, getting excellent seats for both nights, finding great gals to sit with (you have to buy two tickets together on those infernal ticketing platforms for the premium seats), doing some of the pre-show hanging individually and collectively with the other fans, even finding a wonderful hostess with a beautiful home just a mile from the venue entrance to accommodate me. Yes, all perfect.
The Brandi Red Rocks extravaganza is an annual ritual for many Bramily. In 2023 I’d returned to LA for six months from my self-exile in Sydney, and wanted to cram in as many extraordinary concerts as I could. This was an extra-extraordinary two nights. When I spoke to Brandi about this extraordinariness just a few days later at an event she did with Brandy Clark at the Grammy Museum, she agreed it had been especially extraordinary. I have since realised that Brandi is so gloriously all encompassing and all-loving that every show she does and every venue she plays are extraordinary to her. The Bramily that go to the Gorge swear by that as the ultimate venue. Or the Brandi festivals – Girls Just Wanna and Mothership. It is all too much for me. Especially in 2026, as I retro-write this, when, literally as I wrote “at the Grammy Museum”, the Grammy Museum sent out their weekly members’ bulletin announcing a new appearance by Brandi there in a few weeks. I can’t go, darn it, but maybe nothing will top that post-Red Rocks Grammy Museum experience three years ago, anyway, when she spent considerable time chatting with me one to one, and then grabbed a friend’s phone and took a group selfie
Looking back at all these photos I took at Red Rocks in September 2023, I am struck by how much sheer joy comes back to me. The set lists were wide-ranging, a little altered between the Friday and Saturday shows with featured opening acts/special guests – Brandy Clark and Joy Oladokun and all kinds of family who sing – plus the usual smattering of covers, and anchored by the album that had carried Brandi for nearly two years, In These Silent Days, with the smoochy duetting of Brandi and her wife Catherine singing “You and Me On The Rock”.
The band was on fire; that venue, with its intensely spiritual red rock formations all around, must definitely inspire all who play there. Forewarned about sudden temperature drops, I was thrilled that the weather stayed very summer-like and the evenings were warm. Sitting in the sun for the sound check experience before the Friday night show I felt the full force of that late summer Colorado sun reflecting off the rocks. “Soundcheck” is a thing a lot of artists do these days, charging a couple hundred or so extra for an early preview of the show in a small gathering with a casual embracing vibe, and I was glad to have that experience once, but it’s not something I have needed to do again. The increasing cost of being a fan of any artist, especially Brandi lately, is a whole other topic.
If I had written about these shows three years ago I would have gone into more detail to make this post feel immediate or at least more recent. It was such a special time. They were my first Brandi shows since Frost Amphitheater two years before, and the Brandi and Friends show at the Hollywood Bowl was coming up the following month from Red Rocks. I just want to get the photos posted now. I took so many over two nights and these, as many as I share, are just a fraction. I believe these are the first shows where I took photos for this blog using both iPhone and Sony Cyber Shot camera, and had to admit the iPhone pics were pretty good. Both are included here.
(Retro-posted September 2026)
