Diana Ross reveals 2019 Red Rocks Amphitheatre show hot off her Grammy performance

Legendary soul singer Diana Ross will return to Red Rocks Amphitheatre on July 22, promoter AEG Presents Rocky Mountains announced this morning.

With about a month to go until her 75th birthday, the former Supremes leader and Motown native is coming off of her “Diamond Diana” celebration at the 61st Grammy Awards over the weekend.

Ross, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner, received a standing ovation upon taking the stage to perform “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)” and “The Best Years of My Life.” Her dapper, 9-year-old grandson also turned heads when he introduced her performance with a short speech celebrating Ross’ career.

Tickets for Ross’ all-ages, summer concert at Red Rocks are on sale at 10 a.m. Feb. 15 through 303tickets.com. They will cost $46-$251 and are available by calling 303-TICKETS or visiting axs.com.

Ross’ current gig is a series of shows at the Wynn’s Encore Theater in Las Vegas, which continue through Feb. 23.

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Colorado Symphony announces Flaming Lips, Star Wars performances – buy tickets today

The Colorado Symphony proceeds to enlarge its movie-score and pops programming in stimulating ways. This week, even the symphony demonstrated it’d back Oklahoma City freaks The Flaming Lips since the latter re-creates its seminal record “The Soft Bulletin” at Boettcher Concert Hall on Feb. 22. The possibility of seeing these talents unite (in precisely the exact identical way the Lips endorsed Beck in Denver in 2002) is just as tantalizing because the possibility of hearing the Lips’ 1999 indie-psych masterpiece again live. Tickets for the series, that marks that the Lips’ instant collaboration with the symphony since 2016 (when it also performed “The Soft Bulletin”-RRB-, are on sale at 10 a.m. Dec. 21. At 303tickets. com

On the podium for the Colorado Symphony: some noteworthy escalation of its movie-score shows, that have presented titles by the Harry Potter collection, “Home Alone” and much more in recent decades. The most recent movie to have the treatment is “Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back,” inarguably the finest of all Star Wars films and distance sci-fi generally. (OK, “2001: A Space Odyssey” was pretty good, also.) To accommodate the anticipated crush of curiosity, the symphony is doing it at Broomfield’s FirstBank Center March 23-24. Tickets for its all-ages series are on sale at 10 a.m. Dec. 21. ($45-$85, 1stbanktickets. com)

Full-band hip-hop mainstay The Roots is returning with a Feb. 23 series at the Fillmore Auditorium, providing its members a break from their regular gig as Jimmy Fallon’s backing band on “The Tonight Show. ” Tickets for the 16-and-up concert are on sale at 10 a.m. Dec. 15. ($54.75-$130, fillmoretickets.com)

Latin audio powerhouse Marco Antonio Solís will headline the Pepsi Center on Sept. 21 as part of the Y La Historia Continúa tour. Tickets went on sale. ($59-$499, pepsicenter.co)

Festival and outdoor-stage favorites Greensky Bluegrass are returning to Red Rocks Amphitheatre in a big way next year with three successive dates at the historic venue. The Sept. 13-15 shows will feature Lil Smokies (Sept. 13), Rayland Baxter (Sept. 14) and Billy Strings (Sept. 15) as support, with tickets on sale at 10 a.m. Dec. 21. ($45-$80 daily; $100 three-day passes, axs.com.co)

Brilliant but oft-troubled T-Pain is coming back into Denver to get a series at the Gothic Theatre in Englewood on April 1. Tickets for the 16-and-up concert are on sale at 10 a.m. Dec. 21. ($27.50, axs.com.co)

Just declared for Estes Park’s increasingly concert-laden Stanley Hotel: Lettuce is set to headline all-ages shows there Feb. 22-23, and discounted rates for rooms are available using the code “funk. ” Tickets are on sale at 10 a.m. Dec. 21 ($69-$75, axs.com.co)

Conventional group Celtic Woman has been attracting its own Ancient Land tour to Colorado, such as a May 26 concert at Red Rocks which ’s so refreshing it’s not on the band’s website however (as of the writing). Tickets went on sale earlier this past week. ($29.75-$99.75, redrocks.co)

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From the archive: When a 1968 crowd trashed Red Rocks over a canceled Aretha Franklin concert

Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul,” is known for inspiring awe, motivating listeners to dance, and — on at least one occasion in Colorado — sparking a riot.

On Aug. 4, 1968, Franklin was scheduled to perform a Sunday night concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. But she went on stage to announce that she would not be performing because she hadn’t been paid by the program’s impresario, according to Denver Post archives.

Denver Post via Getty Images

About 200 people in the audience stormed the stage, destroying chairs, music stands, a grand piano, footlights, electronic equipment and anything else they could get their hands on. Bottles and rocks were thrown onstage. Metal trash barrels were rolled down the grandstand.

As police moved in, people went into the surrounding park, setting fire to trees, bushes and trash. Despite the chaos, there was little fighting and no one was injured. Three people were arrested, and that was because they were suspected of stealing electronic equipment.

The riot resulted in a one-year ban on rock shows at the venue, according to the Denver Public Library.

Per Franklin’s contract, she was to be paid $20,000 before the performance, according to the original Post story. The New Yorker reportedd that Franklin always demanded to be paid in cash on the spot or she would not go onstage. The cash would go into her handbag, which would either stay with her security team or come on stage with her. The reason: She grew up in an era when Ray Charles and B.B. King would get ripped off, according to The New Yorker.

Franklin, the woman behind classics “Think,” “I Say a Little Prayer” and “Respect,” died Thursday morning in Detroit at the age of 76 after battling advanced pancreatic cancer.

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