How you feelin? The show at Red Rocks was nothing short of awesome. The place was packed and the energy was high. The night started out with a DJ playing some music and getting the crowd pumped. DJs at Red Rocks just make no sense to me, but whatever. He was playing some great music. A great mixture from everything from Sublime to Stevie Wonder to Steve Miller. After his set, Brett Dennen got on stage and played for about 45 minutes. He has a great voice, but nothing really spectacular honestly. The some of the crowd was into it, and the rest was busy with other things. To me, he sounded way too much like Maroon 5 to even care. I was personally more excited to talk to some friends I hadn't seen in ages.
Between the set, the DJ came on for a bit and there was an announcement about over 1,000 prayer flags making their way from the top of Red Rocks all the way to the stage. On these flags were names of people with cancer and a prayer for them. These flags were raised to the top of the stage and left there for Franti's set. The goal is to eventually have them go all the way around the world, it was quite a touching thing to do.
After the prayer flags made their way to the front, Michael Franti took the stage. There are three things in life that are guaranteed: Death, Taxes, and the fact you will have a great time at one of his shows. His energy has yet to be matched by anyone. He bounced all over the stage, played to the crowd, and multiple times even got in the crowd to play. We were in the 23rd row right by the sound booth and he played on a little platform right behind it for part of one song, on the roof above the spotlight near the beer tent at another point, and walked up and down the aisles a few times. Another point in the show he brought out some dancers and a couple kids in wheelchairs. With shouts of How you feeling, make some noise, put your hands in the air, and I want to see you all jumpin' it was impossible for anyone to be bored. The entire crowd was dancing, jumping, waiving their hands in the air, and screaming all night. In one of the touching moments of the show, someone threw a note on some cardboard onstage saying that their Dad really wanted to come to the show but couldn't make it because he was in the hospital with cancer. Franti dedicated the very next song to him and asked the crowd to shout the names of someone that we missed. After two hours, he closed the show with Say Hey (I love you) and brought a bunch of kids on stage to dance with him.
Franti is a front man that really knows how to connect with the crowd. It's obvious that he loves what he does and I sincerely hope that he is an artist that will be around for years to come. He is definitely someone I would see again.
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