Across generations, summer nights are ever the same at the Mishawaka
Many of the times I headed up to the Mishawaka Amphitheatre in the ’90s, I had only a vague idea of who was playing that night.
That’s because for the past century, the Mish, perched next to the Poudre River 24 miles west of Fort Collins, has been as much the attraction as the bands that play there.
When Walter S. Thompson (no relation to Hunter) homesteaded the riverside property in 1916, he named the dance hall and inn after his hometown in Indiana: Mishawaka, named for an American Indian princess and meaning “swift water” in the Pottawatomie language.
Thompson and his wife, who were musicians and music teachers, opened Mishawaka as a mountain resort that held weekly music events — usually square dances with a house band.
It’s easy to say that a venue has upstaged some of the artists who have played there, until you hear some of those musician’s names: Leon Russel, George Clinton, Bela Fleck and Joan Baez played Mishawaka in its heyday. Then came Todd the Wet Sprocket and The String Cheese Incident and, more recently, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats and the Lumineers.
In the ’90s, when I would head up the Poudre with a carload of friends, a lot of Grateful Dead-type bands such as Shakedown Street were regulars at the Mish. At the time, my taste in music ran more toward perpetually depressed English male singers who wore all black and lots of eyeliner. Yet it was always a good time to watch the sunset light up the surrounding hills before dancing under the stars. And no matter what the type of music was being played at the Mish, the river always provided beautiful accompaniment — and a place to cool off feet hot and dirty from dancing.
My greatest concert of all time was when Joan Osborne (no relation to Ozzie) was slated to play the amphitheater (capacity: 950). I had gotten her demo CD, and her emotional lyrics and soulful style began my journey away from New Wave toward the Lilith Fair set.
I thought rain was going to ruin the evening, but instead it brought the show inside and made it amazing.
There weren’t nearly enough people to meet the old dance hall’s 250-person capacity, making for a setting as intimate as they get. I was so close to the stage, I was shooing away the moths that had flown in open doors to swarm around the footlights.
Even now that my dancing-allnight days are behind me, I’ve discovered I still love the Mish. I took my family up there for lunch on a rainy May Sunday and we ate on an enclosed patio that not only overlooks the river, but is actually over the river. Through ceiling-to-floor windows we watched hummingbirds feed and searched the opposite hillside for the mountain goats that often show up in the late afternoon.
After lunch, we took a look around and I noticed that not much has changed in the past decade.
As part of owner Dani Grant’s efforts to reinstate Mishawaka as a “beacon in northern Colorado,” the dance hall is now the Spokesbuzz Lounge. It acts as a showcase for local acts performing everything from bluegrass to hip-hop to pop.
But the stage is still as tiny as when Joan Osborne performed on it. Who knows, maybe you’ll catch a rising band at the Mish and get so close to them you’ll were be swatting moths out of their faces.