Cocaine Jesus in a Rainbow Tulle

Written by Ali DeLambo

Photo by Bridget Craig (@bridgetncraig)

Medium Build (Nick Carpenter) opened the night with the kind of vulnerability that leaves you unsteady, as if you’re watching someone bleed honesty right there under the stage lights. Carpenter was raw, shaking, and completely magnetic; his set pivoted between tenderness and chaos in a way that felt dangerous but necessary. Songs like “White Male Privilege” and “Drug Dealer” hit like confessions hurled into the canyon, jagged and trembling, but also strangely luminous - the kind of songs that don’t just perform for you, they wrestle with you.

Between songs, Carpenter cracked open his middle school memories, laughing at himself while pulling us closer. “I invited boys over to my house in middle school and told them I would cover Kelly Clarkson where Incubus was,” he admitted, alluding to what would happen near the end of the set. Then he went deeper, revealing that he used to invite friends just to watch the two-part Incubus DVD recorded at Red Rocks. He kept circling back to Incubus, pointing out that he’d seen their signatures etched into the tunnels beneath the rocks, like a relic he’d been chasing all his life.

And then the dream folded into reality. Carpenter launched into Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” and Ela Melo of Rainbow Kitten Surprise walked out to join him. Their duet was ragged and radiant, two voices colliding in a cover that felt both ridiculous and transcendent. For a moment, Red Rocks transformed - no longer a legendary amphitheater but a living room bursting with 9,000 friends, laughing and screaming along to a pop anthem reimagined by a man who had once idolized Incubus on DVD and now stood shoulder to shoulder with Ela.

Medium Build’s reverence for Incubus was electric, but it was also a mirror. Watching him, I thought about how much I’ve idolized Rainbow Kitten Surprise since 2015 — sneaking their songs into my headphones during long nights, chasing their words through tiny venues and big ones, building parts of my own story around theirs. For Nick, it was Incubus. For me, it has always been RKS.

When Rainbow Kitten Surprise finally took the stage, the amphitheater seemed to join them in a deep inhale. The sandstone glowed, lights streaked crimson across the walls, and smoke curled upward like incense. They cracked open the night with “Espionage” and “Fever Pitch,” songs that thundered through the rocks with a precision that felt both sharp and untamed. Then came “Goodnight Chicago,” my favorite, radiating and electric, the kind of song that sears itself into your bloodstream when you have carried it for years.

What makes RKS remarkable is not just their musicianship but the way they transform a crowd into a single breathing body. Ela did not just sing to us, she summoned us, lifting her arms like she was conducting something cosmic, and the audience followed every note, every sway, every sharp intake of breath. Their set moved like a storm system rolling over the canyon. “100 Summers,” “Hide,” “Dang,” “Devil Like Me.” Each one swelled into something bigger than sound, a shared language only this crowd could speak.

Then came “Friendly Fire,” its live debut, and the amphitheater seemed to lean forward collectively, catching every note of a song being born right there. “Painkillers” and “First Class” kept the current surging, before “Cocaine Jesus” hit like a lightning strike. For me, as someone who has been tethered to this band for the past ten years, that moment was insane. I have seen them in clubs, in festivals, on headphones in my bed, but never with the weight of nine thousand voices rising like a choir into the canyon walls.

“Run” surged like a final prayer before the encore. Ela appeared in a rainbow tulle coat and Medium Build returned in a matching one in sparkly black, their joy radiating through the canyon. Together they offered “Thanks for Coming” and then, almost as if to remind us that anything is possible in this space, they closed with Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” and “It’s Called: Freefall.”

Rainbow Kitten Surprise did not just perform at Red Rocks. They turned it into a communion, a fever dream, a memory carved into stone. The songs were not just played, they were lived, stretched into something greater than the sum of their parts. And for a fan who has carried their music like scripture for a decade, it felt like stepping inside the sacred fire.