The Rainbow Music Hall: Remembering a Legendary Denver Concert Venue

Building a Rainbow

Barry Fey was not known as a particularly soft or sentimental man, but the Rainbow clearly occupied a special place in his heart. He bought the former triplex movie theater in 1978 and set out building a theater that would be much more than your average concert hall. 

He described his relationship with Rainbow in a January 19, 1979 article in the Rocky Mountain News saying:

This place means more to me than just opening a concert hall. This is pride, man. I'm partners with the kid. They're the ones that made it possible. Music means more to Denver than someplace else. You couldn't make this happen in Cleveland and Detroit. We're caretakers for the kids who go there. It's their place. 

How serious was Fey about making the Rainbow a place, "for the kids"?

For starters, he stayed up nights fretting about the service charges that would be tacked on to each ticket by Select-a-Seat. Select-a-Seat's service fee was a whopping $.60 (about $1.73 in 2016 dollars), but concert-goers who bought tickets at the Rainbow box office could knock that down to just $.10 (or $.29 today). 

In 1980, the average concert ticket for a Rainbow show hovered between $7-$8 ($20.23-$23.12 in 2016) and Fey boasted that, "All the seats will be good seats. No one will be more than 70 feet from the stage."

Parking at the Rainbow was free, but there was only room for about 400 cars. (This would prove to be a thorn in Fey's side as we'll see in a moment.) 

In its first month, the Rainbow hosted 12 concerts by 9 artists including Jerry Jeff Walker (who played on opening night); Cheech and Chong; The Dirt Band; Elvin Bishop; Al Jarreau; Leo Kottke; and Willie Nelson.

A Night to Remember (or Forget - Depending on Where You Were Sitting)

On April 25, 1984, the Rainbow hosted Black Flag, a seminal hardcore punk band from Los Angeles in an evening that would go down in Colorado concert lore. 

Black Flag's opening acts that night included the Meat Puppets, who would later score a few alternative hits in the 1990's, and a lesser known act called Nig-Heist. 

Nig-Heist was comprised of Black Flag roadies and, as the article above indicates, the show ended with two members of the band spending the night in the Denver County Jail after being charged with indecent exposure. What the above article does not indicate, was what Nig-Heist did onstage to earn that night in jail. At least two Nig-Heist members walked on stage in various states of undress (mostly undressed) and, shall we say, danced as if no one was looking. 

In a 2012 interview with Westword, Fey recalled the night as follows:

I had never heard of Black Flag. Their roadies opened for them, and this one a*****e took off all his clothes. I went up on stage, grabbed the mike and said, 'You'll never see a piece of s**** like that again!'

Black Flag front man Henry Rollins also recalled the night in his book, Get in the Van saying:

Mugger and Tom were arrested for being naked on stage when they were playing their set as the Nig Heist...We got them out of jail at 3:30 this morning. Barry Fey is the promoter, a real scumbag. He's horrible and will probably be around for many years to come. 

Though Black Flag did return to the Rainbow, Nig-Heist never graced the stage there again. The incident has since faded into lore and legend, and in 2012, Westword placed it #18 on its list of Twenty Fabled Moments in Denver Music.