Not too many touring musicians can call Red Rocks Amphitheatre home, but Gregory Alan Isakov can lay claim to just that. The Boulder, Colorado-based songwriter has been playing shows at the famed venue around Labor Day weekend for some time now, and this year’s run featured two consecutive sold-out nights. So, yeah, it’s a second home for Isakov.
He did not disappoint on August 31st, delivering his mostly quiet songs just as they are, challenging the audience to listen closely because nothing was going to 11 on this night, including the show, which actually ended before 10 pm.
But that is the whole point of Isakov’s music — it will not move you by sheer force, but rather by nuance. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of noise to produce its effect. And to his credit, he proved this recipe can work at a larger-than-life outdoor venue. Playing mostly in the dark –and near the back of the stage to boot– the building beauty of songs like “The Fall” and “Sweet Heat Lightning” were highlights of the main set, while the three-song encore of “Big Black Car,” “If I Go, I’m Goin'” with opener Leif Vollebekk (who, by the way, was tremendous), and a subdued-yet-moving hootenanny performance of “The Stable Song” near the front of the stage ended the show.
As Isakov walked off stage with his band, he took a long look up at all his fans who had filled up the venue’s steep step-seats, and smiled. Home, it seems, is always a place to which he can return.
Photos by Jason Gonulsen
