The Tale of the Dog (2020)

The Family Dog Denver changed the city of Denver forever. It is the reason Denver is a major music destination and has more live music venues than Austin, Texas. It gave rise to one of the world's great rock promotors, Barry Fey, and one of the world's greatest music venues, Red Rocks Amphitheater. The Tale of the Dog tells the previously-untold story of the genesis of Denver's transformation from cow town to hip city. This 100-minute documentary film charts the struggles and triumphs of legendary San Francisco music promotor Chet Helms' pioneering hippie rock club as it tries to bring the psychedelic scene to Denver. Open from September 8, 1967, through July 19, 1968, the Family Dog brought to Denver, for the first time, such new legendary bands as the Grateful Dead, the Doors, Cream, Howlin' Wolf, Jefferson Airplane, and Van Morrison. It also gave Denver one of the world's first and greatest psychedelic light shows - Diogenes Lantern Works. The Family Dog Denver was special because it was more than a rock club. It was a cultural nexus - a landmark psychedelic outpost of the hippie counterculture. As such, it became ground zero for conflicts between police and hippies, as the terrified city grappled with this new and frightening music and drug phenomenon.