This week marks the 100th anniversary of touring acts playing live concerts at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Denver’s iconic venue of the West. Shortly after internationally acclaimed opera singer Mary Garden crooned “Ave Maria” on Stage Rock this week in 1911, she gushed: “Never in any opera house the world over have I found more perfect acoustic properties.”

“I predict that someday, 20,000 people will assemble there to listen to the world’s greatest masterpieces,” she wrote.

Garden’s sentiment proved prophetic. The dramatic twin fins of monolithic sandstone that harbor a historical record dating back 250 million years have hosted a much shorter but equally inspiring record of musical performances in the past century.

“It makes your hair just stand up when you think about the artists who’ve been here,” says Erik Dyce, who has shepherded Red Rocks marketing for Denver’s Theatres and Arenas Division for the past 23 years. “This place is a temple. It’s overwhelming when the venue overpowers the artist.”

Red Rocks has well served Denver, which acquired the venue in 1941 for $50,000 and quickly elevated the 868-acre park and venue to its crown jewel in an already impressive trove of mountain parks. Culturally and financially, Red Rocks plays an important role for the city, contributing $1.85 million in tax revenue last year.

This week, Denver leaders merged the Theatres and Arenas Division, of which Red Rocks is a part, with the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs, saving Denver’s strapped general fund $1.2 million a year.

Without using any general-fund tax dollars, Red Rocks’ consistent revenue now can help support events such as the Five Points Jazz Festival as well as the city’s Performing Arts Complex.

This summer promises to be a barnburner at Red Rocks, delivering thrills to thousands and dollars to Denver.

“Biggest year I’ve seen in 20-plus years,” says Chuck Morris, Denver’s fabled concert promoter, who began his career working with concert promoter Barry Fey. Morris has hosted more than 1,500 shows at Red Rocks since 1976 and, as head of AEG Live, is bringing 40 shows to the venue this summer. “Ticket sales are doing extremely well. I don’t think anything is immune to huge economic drops, but Red Rocks is resilient. I consider it the greatest amphitheater in the world.”

From backstage, with its red-rock- walled dressing rooms and calcium- stained tunnel etched with decades of artist graffiti, Dyce’s voice echoes as he recounts his most memorable encounters with musical history: Lounging with the late Stevie Ray Vaughn as he taught a few chords to star-struck visitors. Watching Neil Young share his harp and a whispered, tear-inducing moment with a kid in a wheelchair. Listening to Tracy Chapman compose a song in her perfectly acoustic dressing room.

“There’s a real magic here,” he says.

That spirit has enthralled not just concertgoers but performers, who clearly dig a little deeper when gazing up at 9,450 eager fans flanked by the massive monoliths that create the naturally acoustic amphitheater. Todd Mohr, whose Colorado- bred Big Head Todd and the Monsters has played Red Rocks 17 times in the past 20 years, calls the legendary venue “the pinnacle of musical performance.” Even with his well-worn position in front of a home-state crowd on the West’s best stage, Mohr gets the jitters every time.

“It’s always a little nerve-wracking, stepping out on that stage,” Mohr says. “Just the scale of it. You are looking up at quite a bit of the audience. You can see almost every one of them. It’s a bit daunting.”

Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com

Evolution of Red Rocks

May 1906 — Grand opening of the Garden of the Titans, with Denver’s Pietro Satriano and his 25-piece brass band

May 1911 — Mary Garden plays the first solo concert at Red Rocks.

1928 — Denver buys 640 acres to make Red Rocks Mountain Park.

1935 — The Morrison Civilian Conservation Corps Camp is established for the thousands of 17- to 24-year-olds who worked constructing Red Rocks from 1935 to 1947.

June 1941 — Red Rocks Amphitheatre, now owned by the city of Denver, is officially dedicated.

April 1947 — The first Easter sunrise service at Red Rocks draws about 60,000 people.

1964 — The Denver City Council bans alcohol, cans and bottles from the amphitheater, following two concerts — Ray Charles in August 1962 and Peter, Paul and Mary in July 1964 — that saw audience members hurling beer cans at the stage.

August 1964 — The Beatles stop at Red Rocks on their first U.S. tour.

August 1968 — Aretha Franklin refuses to play after a contract dispute with concert promoter, prompting a near riot that saw audience members storming the stage and destroying a piano.

1969 — Denver places a one-year ban on rock concerts at Red Rocks following the Franklin riots and a tear-gassed clash at the Denver Pop Festival in 1969.

June 1971 — Ticketless fans storm the Jethro Tull concert, prompting police to use tear gas. Red Rocks cancels the rest of the month’s concerts.

1988 — Large metal roof is installed over the stage.

2003 — Denver unveils about $29 million in investment and upgrades at Red Rocks, including the $15 million visitor center and Ship Rock Grille.

August 2003 — Willie Nelson surpasses the Grateful Dead’s record for most performances at Red Rocks.

June 2010 — Widespread Panic plays its 35th sold-out concert at Red Rocks, more than any other band.

Source: “Sacred Stones, Colorado’s Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre” by Tom Noel

Random Red Rocks trivia

The monoliths flanking Red Rocks are “Ship Rock” to the south, “Creation Rock” to the north and “Stage Rock” to the east, behind the stage.

Thirty-two different Native American tribes consider Red Rocks a sacred venue.

All the red sandstone used in developing Red Rocks was quarried from the same geologic formation in Lyons.

Every performer who plays Red Rocks gets a mounted chunk of that Lyons sandstone. (The “Piece of the Rock” collectibles are coveted by many performers, including Gregg Almann, who was once miffed when his rock was etched with only two “g’s” in Gregg.

Longtime Red Rocks marketing chief Erik Dyce has never-before-seen video of the famous 1964 performance by The Beatles.

The only recent Red Rocks performance with no known photographs, according to Dyce, is the Sept. 1, 1968 concert by Jimi Hendrix and Vanilla Fudge.

The backstage area of Red Rocks was once a bunker filled with non-perishable food for Denver’s leaders during the height of the bomb-fearing Cold War.

The Civilian Conservation Corps, which finished the federally sponsored, hand-hewed construction of the city-owned venue in 1947, built giant barn-door entrances backstage to accommodate a rider atop a horse.

Red Rocks saw its average of 55 events a year plummet to 21 in 1988, the year the 18,000-seat Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre opened in Greenwood Village.

In 1988, Denver paid $80,000 to blast a giant rock that had tumbled from the eastern wall into the venue. The rubble served as a base for the north entrance stairs. (Every year an engineering firm inspects the rocks surrounding the venue.)

Red Rocks hosts 1.5 million non-concert-going visitors every year, almost three times the number of concert goers.

John Denver, who played several concerts at Red Rocks including a rare four-night stand in 1974, would jog, incognito, up-and-down the 69-row arena several times before each concert.