Colorful In Colorado: The String Cheese Incident Delights Over 2 Nights At Red Rocks

Over three decades into their career and showing zero signs of easing off the throttle, The String Cheese Incident returned to Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado this past weekend for shows #57 and #58 at the venue the Colorado band has called home since the mid-’90s. Anchored midway through the 33-date Just Keep Spinning Tour, their most expansive summer run in over a decade, SCI delivered a staggering seven-plus hours of music across two nights that spanned the full breadth of the band’s catalog and imaginative ambitions.

Friday, July 17 – Apres Cheese

On a beautiful, cloud-covered and picture-perfect Friday evening, Colorado country-bluegrass rocker locals Clay Street Unit set the tone, riding in on a buzz of hype after the release of their debut album Sin & Squalor earlier this year and lots of family and friends in attendance, making this Cheese weekend even more of a family affair than usual.

The young band was geeking to warm up the crowd before their local heroes took the stage, remarking that they’d been in attendance countless times at these Red Rocks shows over the last decade. The set included new tracks from their outstanding debut LP like “Drive,” a driving bluegrass take on MGMT’s “Kids” and the Dead-nod pairing of “I Know You Rider” into “Morning Dew” to close their set.

Each night had a theme and Friday’s was “Apres Cheese,” as fans were encouraged to dress in their finest Colorado gear (although the weather didn’t really allow for any gaper ski regalia one would expect).

Set one hit its stride early with the much-coveted “Miss Brown’s Teahouse” into “Chameleon” into “Miss Brown’s Teahouse” segment providing one of the weekend’s major musical highlights right out of the gate, before a lengthy, jammed-out “Pirates” added some latin flair to the sonically broad-spanning set.

Clay Street Unit’s Sam Walker and Dan Andree joined for a bluegrass cover of Peter Rowan/Old and in the Way’s “Midnight Moonlight” before the set closed with the classic improvisational pairing of “It Is What It Is” into “Shantytown,” a quintessential combination that gave the band plenty of room to stretch and explore as the sun dipped behind the Rocks.

Set two built steadily from keyboardist Kyle Hollingsworth’s funky “Close Your Eyes,” gaining steam throughout “One Step Closer” into “Drums” into “Sweet Spot” before landing on a highlight of the evening: Michael Kang's newer composition “Osiris” (with Lonesome Pony/Rapidgrass’ Mark Morris sitting in), a tune that opens with a Led Zeppelin-esque swagger before pivoting into a proggier composed section.

“Rhythm of the Road” followed (complete with a rare “Chalk Dust Torture” tease) and Hollingsworth’s “Light Fantastic” brought the set to a rousing close. “Hi Ho No Show” wrapped the evening for night one’s encore, officially setting an extremely high bar for the second show to clear.

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Saturday, July 18 – Colorful Colorado

Saturday’s show had a “Colorful Colorado” banner and the night’s performance stretched from just after the scheduled 7 p.m. start time until the stroke of midnight, with no opener.

The sextet opened night twp with an extra special acoustic “living room set,” taking their places in chairs at the front of the stage as they’ve done at select stops on the current Just Keep Spinning Tour. Delivering classics “Joyful Sound,” “Restless Wind,” “Good Times Around the Bend” and “Rollover,” the nearly hour-long set hit with a rare felt campfire intimacy at the grand 9,000+ capacity amphitheatre.

Notably, the set-closing “Let’s Go Outside” was the only post-2000 song in set one, a fitting bridge to the set that followed.

Set two pivoted to the band’s more recent material. Hollingsworth’s circus-themed “Carnival” (from his 2025 solo album All We Are) opened the frame, a cover of “Can’t Stop Now” kept the energy high, and deeper cuts from the band’s most recent decade, “Song in My Head,” the 2026 debut “Fete Tama,” and Kang’s “Beautiful” closed the set, showcasing a band very much still actively writing their story and building their legacy in their fourth decade.

After a second set break, the final frame was vintage SCI across the board. During a +20-minute “’Round the Wheel,” a couple dozen hula hoopers (who entered a social media contest to participate) flanked the band, taking turns showcasing their skills at the front of the stage during the jubilant, quintessential jam. The spectacle was a sight to behold and if you were to show an alien what a String Cheese show is like/what the band is all about, this may be the most fitting starting point.

To anchor the show, “Rivertrance” was interpolated with drummer Michael Travis singing lead vocals (his second turn at the mic of the evening on a cover – the other was Paul Simon’s “Late in the Evening”) on Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two)” before a “Black Clouds” encore stretched the odyssey to midnight.

I’d be remiss to gloss over how impressively Kang handled his turn on David Gilmour’s soaring solo, beaming out sharp and deliberate note-bends with an almost percussive style, wielding a rebellious swagger befitting of the song’s anti-authoritarian lyrics while doing justice to one of the most recognizable guitar solos in rock history (and doing all of this between furiously leading through the exuberant and iconic “Rivertrance” on the electric fiddle).

The sheer volume and not-taken-for-granted variety of music delivered over the weekend speaks to where The String Cheese Incident stands in 2026: a band three decades deep that is somehow playing with more frequency than they have in years, writing new songs with ambition and purpose, and appearing as well-rehearsed and hungry as they have in years was a joy to behold.

This weekend found the band in mid-season form on the Just Keep Spinning Tour (which kicked off in late-May with a Texas jaunt). This summer marks the band’s most extensive touring schedule in over a decade, spanning 30+ dates coast to coast.

This alone would represent a significant commitment for a band whose members are all north of 50, but the summer run is merely the prelude. In September, SCI will take their devoted community to Marrakech, Morocco for The Moroccan Incident, a three-night destination gathering marking the first time the band’s celebrated destination events have ventured to Africa.

From an acoustic set making the vast stage on the rocks feel intimate to a midnight-closing epic set three it seems that whether they’re at home at Red Rocks or as far out in Marrakech, The String Cheese Incident in 2026 is a band intent to just keep spinning.

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Watch replays of The String Cheese Incident’s 2026 Red Rocks run livestreams with a nugs subscription.

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