Hometown heroes Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats came back to Denver on Friday for their annual Holiday Show. The sold-out concert at Ball Arena featured openers Mt. Joy and Jaime Wyatt and raised money for local non-profits Harm Reduction Action Center and EarthLinks.

Rateliff’s Holiday Shows have been an annual tradition in Denver dating back to the group’s formation in 2013. After skipping 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID pandemic, the Holiday Show returned in 2022 to make its debut at the 21,000-capacity Ball Arena. This year’s celebration was billed as the “19th annual” Holiday Show, though Rateliff admitted from the stage last year—at what was promoted as the “7th Annual, 10th Annual Holiday Show”—that he has lost track of how many they’ve done. While that number may be a little shakey, one figure that is for certain is that last year Rateliff’s Holiday Show raised $100,000 for various causes.

Prior to the Holiday Show, Rateliff was on the road touring as a solo act on his relaunched And It’s Still Alright tour. Rateliff had put The Night Sweats on ice back in 2020 to launch the tour in support of his solo folk album of the same name, only to have the curtain called nine days in due to the COVID pandemic. When live concerts began to return early the following year, Rateliff delivered a surprise reunion with his Night Sweats on Saturday Night Live. The band’s fourth and most recent album, The Future, arrived in fall 2021.


[Photo (from left): Mark Shusterman, High Road Touring’s Dave Rowan, Luke Mossmann 7S Management’s Chris Tetzeli, Joseph Pope III, Nathaniel Rateliff, Jeff Dazey, AEG’s Chuck Morris, Daniel Hardaway, AEG’s Don Strasburg, Andreas Wild, Pat Meese, and Ball Arena’s Chris Goddard]

Check out a gallery of images from Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats’ annual Holiday Show in Denver courtesy of photographer Kit Tincher. The band resumes touring next year with a February jaunt through Canada. For tickets and a full list of tour dates head here.

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats – “Don’t Do It” (Marvin Gaye) – 12/15/23

[Video: Royce Witherspoon]