At the points where their borders are nearest, Colorado lies just a little more than 30 miles from Texas. Sure enough, the rust-colored outcroppings of sandstone west of Denver recall the dramatic escarpments of Palo Duro Canyon and the rugged features of Big Bend. The two states bear a kinship in their ability to evoke a sense of the American West in all its grandiosity. And in that way, it’s the exact sort of cinematic setting that befits the music of country troubadour Charley Crockett, who played the historic Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colo., on Wednesday night—with some support from two other outstanding Austin artists, Chaparelle and Rattlesnake Milk.
The songsmith from San Benito, Texas, has a larger-than-life charisma that felt right at home among the towering twin pillars of Creation Rock and Ship Rock. With a dusky sun on the horizon and a thunderhead brewing to the northeast, Crockett took the stage flanked by enormous illuminated letters spelling out his name and kicked off the night with “Game I Can’t Win” from his most recent album, Lonesome Drifter.
From the first note, the Red Rocks crowd brimmed with energy, dancing and singing along to songs from across Crockett’s expansive catalog. Older cuts like “Welcome to Hard Times” and “Paint It Blue” got especially enthusiastic responses, but hoots and hollers punctuated the evening, regardless of the era a song was culled from. Wavering brass notes drifted in the mountain air for “Trinity River” and “The Man From Waco,” and Crockett’s voice echoed off the canyon walls during a particularly pensive segment of the set that included “Time of the Cottonwood Trees” and “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
The country singer also trotted out a whopping six unreleased songs, including a couple that felt apropos for the evening: the bluesy “Ain’t That Right,” which contains the lyric “I played them Red Rocks a couple times before,” and a number called “El Paso to Denver.” All signs hint that the prolific musician already has enough material for another new album, a staggering fact considering that he released two last year and another in March.
Crockett and his backing band, the Blue Drifters, wrapped the night with a four-song encore that included two deep cuts, the sultry “Silver Dagger” and rollicking “5 More Miles,” as well as crowd-pleasers “Jamestown Ferry” and “Run Horse Run.” The high-energy finale completed an absolute barnburner of a set from one of country music’s most compelling voices.
Earlier in the evening, rising stars Chaparelle performed a simmering set of country tunes that thrive on the vocal harmonies (and sexual chemistry) of Zella Day and Jesse Woods—think a modern version of George Jones and Tammy Wynette. “Here we are in God’s house, Red Rocks—this is a special night,” Woods said before taking the stage and kicking off the set with “Devil Music.”…