Back when Murray Armstrong and Willy Schaeffler were leading the Pioneers to multiple NCAA titles, rock concerts began a colorful era at the University of Denver.  Legendary promoter Barry Fey began his career by booking fraternity parties at DU in 1966.  Fey evidently lived for a short time at the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity house on Josephine Street and brought The Association to the DU Student Union in 1966 for a fraternity party.

If you Google “rock concerts University of Denver arena,” one of the concerts to show up is The Doors on April 12, 1970, at DU Arena.  A review by Jim Pagliasotti in The Denver Post said there was an overflow crowd of 6,000 in attendance for a “chaotic, alcohol-fueled show.”  The set list included “Break On Through (to the Other Side)” and “Light My Fire.”  The Doors also played at the Student Union on September 29, 1967.  The next night, they had a concert at the famous Family Dog on West Evans Avenue.

You might be surprised to see that the rock concert scene at DU Arena and Magness Arena had this many big names.  One of the first was the all-female band The Shangri-Las in May, 1965.  The DU Arena concert was part of the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars and included the  Zombies, Del Shannon, and several other bands. Eric Burdon and the Animals were at the Student Union in April, 1967.

After Denver terminated its football program in 1960, the school did not celebrate homecoming for seven years (1961- 67).  In 1968, the hockey team provided the game, and the next night (November 23, 1968), Simon and Garfunkel performed to a sold-out crowd at DU Arena for homecoming.  Tickets were $3.50, $4.50, and $5.50.

The 1970’s were filled with many big names.  Frank Zappa (October 1971), Pink Floyd (April 1972), Steve Miller Band/ Boz Skaggs (October 1972), New Riders of the Purple Sage (October 1974), Jefferson Starship (April 1975), and Lynyrd Skynyrd (October 1976).  I was a freshman in the fall of 1976, and I can still smell the marijuana in the next J-Mac dorm room and my neighbors blasting Skynyrd!

The early ’80s saw Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (January 1980), Pat Travers (January 1981), Black Sabbath (January 1983), Sammy Hagar (March 1983), The Tubes (September 1983), and Kiss (January 1984).  The late 1980s and early 1990’s seemed to be a quiet rock concert scene in University Park.  McNichols Arena and Red Rocks Amphitheater attracted the bigger crowds.  Barry Fey’s Rainbow Music Hall also might have taken acts away from the DU campus.

With the opening of Magness Arena in 1999, Jethro Tull was the first band to play that September.  Def Leppard made appearances in 1999, 2002, and 2005.  Big names continued to fill the arena with Brian Wilson (September 2000), Stone Temple Pilots (November 2000), Prince (April 2001), Sting in 2001 and 2005, Earth, Wind and Fire (June 2002), Depeche Mode (November 2005), The Killers (January 2009), Neil Young (April 2009) and Sheila E (April 2015).  The last concert on the concert archives list is Midnight Star in October 2018.

Although I never saw a concert at DU Arena during my undergraduate days, I did snag four tickets to the Rolling Stones concert at Folsom Field in July 1978.

If you have information on a DU rock concert experience, please leave a comment.  Thanks to the University of Denver Archives & Special Collections for photographs and past issues of the Denver Clarion. Other sources include ChatGPT, Google Search, concertarchives.org, and Backstage Past by Barry Fey.