Pretty Lights Sell Out – Red Rocks

It seems like everywhere you look the music media is focusing on the tough times the live music industry has hit this summer. Previously hot acts such as the Jonas Brothers, Christina Aguilera and Kings of Leon are having trouble selling tickets and Live Nation keeps on announcing new sales gimmicks to fill empty sheds. We like to focus on the positives and there’s plenty of acts bucking the downward trend including Colorado’s Pretty Lights.

Pretty Lights Opening For STS9 @ Red Rocks ’09

We tried pulling tickets for Pretty Lights’ first headlining gig at Red Rocks on August 7th and got the “no tickets are available for this event” message indicating a sell out. Colorado has always supported home grown talent, but it’s still unbelievable to see how quickly Pretty Lights – the moniker of DJ Derek Vincent Smith – rose from performing at small clubs to selling out one of the premier venues in the nation. Umphrey’s McGee and the Disco Biscuits have been around for 12 and 15 years respectively and couldn’t fill Red Rocks with a bunch of support acts in tow this summer.

Regardless of what you think of PL’s music – and there are quite a few haters out there who feel he doesn’t do enough on stage – Smith has made a connection with music fans and has built his brand on the back of relentless gigging and freely distributed albums. Now that Pretty Lights has reached this high level of success so quickly, the hard part will be keeping it up for the next few years and onwards. The Samples sold out Red Rocks back in the mid ’90s and their career went downhill from there, so future growth isn’t a given. We’re rooting for Pretty Lights to take it to the next level.

Related Content

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

New to Glide

Keep up-to-date with Glide

Twitter