3 Local Venues Keeping Western Colorado's Music Scene Alive
Some people fall in love with music at a young age, picking up instruments and instantaneously feeling their magic. Others develop a slow, steady appreciation for the art, welcoming in soul-altering bass lines and melodic lyrics over time until music is embedded into every corner of their being.
However the journey unfolds, once the tunes seep in and grab hold, the driving force is impossible to ignore. This is how stars are born, bands are formed and — fortunately for Western Colorado — how iconic venues rise from the dirt.
We sat down with three Colorado music venue pioneers to hear their unique stories of music-fueled dedication and to find out how they’re keeping the rural music scene alive.
VENUE: I Bar Ranch
LOCATION: Gunnison
OWNER: Bryan Wickenhauser
Endurance mountain athlete Bryan Wickenhauser landed in Crested Butte as an alpine ski coach. Traveling around the world for athletic events, he started paying close attention to event management and what went into a successful competition.
In 2004, Wickenhauser and his wife got married at former chuckwagon dinner venue I Bar Ranch just a few miles outside of Gunnison. Other than hosting a few weddings here and there, the western heritage event center that sits on a 10-acre converted hay meadow at the base of W Mountain sat dormant for nearly a decade between 2003 and 2013.
Drawn to the agricultural roots and down home feel of the land, Wickenhauser returned to the property he and his wife cherished, revamping the layout and opening I Bar Ranch as a premier rural concert venue in the spring of 2013.
“I wanted something better for the lower end of the Gunnison Valley,” he says. “I wanted to see an avenue for live music where I lived. And I wanted this for my community.”
I Bar Ranch hosts a lively May to October concert lineup and around a dozen weddings each summer. The classic hay barn stage setting — around the size of a hockey rink — holds up to 2,000 concertgoers and draws acts like Wynona Judd, Charlie Daniels, Michael Franti, Spafford, Railroad Earth and Yonder Mountain String Band. Family-friendly meadow camping adjacent to the concert venue and a 14-foot-wide bonfire along with food trucks and a silo and cabin converted into walk-up bars round out the scene.
“With our eclectic blend of country, jam grass, rock and reggae, I Bar is so classic Colorado,” Wickenhauser says. “You’ve got the cool mountain air, a hot bonfire, and a chilled beverage in your hand. We provide that really cool smaller venue that folks want to go back and tell their friends about.”
VENUE: Shakedown Bar
LOCATION: Vail
FOUNDER: Scott Rednor
Scott Rednor remembers the Fender 12-string acoustic guitar his grandparents bought him. The 12-year-old Jersey kid would listen to his mom’s old Grateful Dead and Eric Clapton vinyl, clumsily moving his fingers across the strings, trying to match the chords coming out of the record player.
That craving for big sound and bigger mountains — Rednor grew up outside of Princeton, N.J. with ski patrol parents — brought him to Colorado after high school. Twenty something Rednor launched the band Dear Liza in 1995 in Fort Collins, went on tour, and was picked up by the manager of Blues Traveler. His band began opening up for them at big festivals and arenas during their late-90s heyday.
Rednor circled the world playing guitar with bands like Dave Matthews, Lenny Kravitz and many more for 15 years before landing at the Red Lion in Vail strumming with Phil Long in 2009. Rednor and his then-business-partner opened Shakedown Bar in 2012 in the underground spot at the top of buzzing Bridge Street. His mission: To raise the level of arts and entertainment in the Vail Valley. He tapped into his connections in Denver and beyond, filling the stage with talent from bands like JJ Grey & Mofro, Dopapod, Big Gigantic, John Brown’s Body and Coral Creek.
Today, the 198-person live music venue features cutting-edge sound and lighting systems with full studio recording and streaming capabilities serving up music seven nights a week.
“In 12 years, we’ve mastered all of the dreams and visions of how to host our guests and give them the ultimate experience,” Rednor says. “We burn incense, we have candles, the lighting, the staff that cares — everything matters to create the listener experience.”
You won’t hear a Sweet Caroline singalong at Shakedown Bar. But you might catch Dean Ween or a member of Dead and Co. playing an impromptu set. That’s the beauty of the experience, Rednor adds, and it’s better than ever at this legendary Vail venue.
VENUE: The TANK Center for Sonic Arts
LOCATION: Rangely
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: James Paul
Tucked away in the northwest corner of Colorado near the Utah border, there’s a cylindrical wonder making acoustic waves. The TANK Center for Sonic Arts is a seven-story Corten steel water tank with a bowed floor that lends to extraordinary acoustical resonance. The live music venue and recording space in Rio Blanco County pushes boundaries, holding sound between its parabolic floor and soaring concave roof like no other venue in the state.
“In there, you feel the sound on the skin, you feel it in your gut. What people are in awe of is their own ability to hear properly,” says Bruce Odland, TANK founder and board chair. “People feel a genuine awe. They may ascribe it to the TANK, but I ascribe it to the awakening of the ears in a predominantly visual age.”
Odland discovered the untapped space in 1976. Realizing the hidden treasure’s ear caressing gifts, the TANK became a secret performance and recording space for a dedicated group of sound artists and musicians. In 2012, the owner considered selling the metal for scrap and volunteers from all over the country formed Friends of The TANK, initiating Kickstarter campaigns to purchase The TANK and its land and tackle a long list of laborious facilitation projects.
The TANK’s first grant, from the Boettcher Foundation, purchased a state-of-the-art recording studio. Rangely’s 2015 Septemberfest open house drew musicians, performers and visitors from Rangely, Denver, Utah and beyond. The Western Slope secret was out and The TANK began to see pop-up jam sessions, local school band performances, and, thanks to a pilot program by Colorado Creative Industries and the Colorado Office of Economic Development, an impromptu visit from Denver experimental hip-hop band the Flobots.
In its third season in 2017, The TANK hosted recording sessions, artist residencies and performances, including sessions by Rinde Eckert, Jessica Meyer, and the Grammy winning vocal group Roomful of Teeth. Today, The TANK brings programming and recording opportunities that no one else in Colorado offers and has begun miking in artists remotely, delivering a live signal to The TANK and sending it back out to audiences to hear from anywhere.
“Our founders are all deeply sonic nerds,” says TANK executive director James Paul. “We’ve found the right software to transmit that sound to anywhere. Now you can come to Rangely and make your sonic art in The TANK in-person, or you can tune in remotely to hear yourself, to play, to record or even to perform in its profound reverb. We’re moving the sounds of The TANK out into the world.”
Originally published in the Winter 2024-25 issue of Spoke+Blossom.