The Special Charm and Mystique of Alpine Valley Music Theatre

The Milwaukee area has many gifts. One gem that sometimes flies just under the radar is Alpine Valley, a concert venue located out in East Troy, WI. Over the years, a horde of musicians and festivals have played there, with many giving particular praise to the location as one of their favorite spots to play. What is it that makes Alpine Valley such a legendary venue in concert circles?

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Alpine Valley opened in June 1977, but it wasn’t until the Grateful Dead starting playing the theater in the Eighties that the spot really took off. The legions of fans following the Dead across the country took a special liking to the venue, partially because of its generous camping arrangements. The group played Alpine Valley twenty times from 1980 through 1989.

Though jam bands like the Dead gave Alpine Valley its special popularity, the venue has moved beyond the genre to encompass all sorts of acts, with groups like Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine also playing memorable shows. A slew of music festivals have also made Alpine Valley their locale.

Still, with its unique wooden pavilion and massive grassy hill, Alpine Valley continues to fit best into the earthy vibes of the jam community. Phish, a band often viewed culturally as the spiritual successor to the Grateful Dead, has played several of their most beloved shows at Alpine Valley over the years, dating from their Nineties heyday right up to the present. As of 2020, Phish has also played Alpine (as fans affectionately refer to it) twenty times.

Most recently, Phish played a summer-tour closing show on July 14, 2019 that’s commonly hailed as their best performance of recent years. The gig, which was the final of a three night stand at the venue, featured exciting “bust-outs” of many fan favorite songs, along with in-depth, spacey jamming, most notably on a 38-minute rendition of Ruby Waves, the longest jam played by the band since their reunion in 2009. This stunning take on the tune has since become known as the “Alpine Ruby Waves,” with the whole show being reverently referred to in Phish circles simply as “Alpine N3.”

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What is Alpine Valley, exactly?

With a 37,000-person capacity, Alpine Valley was the largest amphitheater in the United States until 1993. The stage is housed in a 7,500-seat pavilion with a characteristically styled wooden roof, but perhaps its most notable feature is the sprawling lawn area that stretches up a hill, allowing the crowd to gather in a rising, grooving tide that gazes down on the performers below. Thanks to its location, the venue draws a wide regional audience while still giving attendees the oft-welcome impression that they’ve ended up in the middle of nowhere.