Photos by Brian Carney.

Dating back to the early ’90s, New York-based Blues Traveler has made playing the Fourth of July at Red Rocks an annual tradition. The band has changed, their fans have changed, but like clockwork, you can expect a Blues Traveler show on July 4th.

Looking at the lineup for this year’s show however, it became apparent how far the band has moved from their roots. In 1992, Traveler put together the H.O.R.D.E. tour, a neo-hippie Lollapalooza-type festival with other budding jam bands like Phish and Widespread Panic. The H.O.R.D.E. festival was a mainstay in the mid-’90s, complete with other jam oriented acts like Gov’t Mule and Neil Young.

At their show this year at Red Rocks, Traveler was the only jam-oriented act on the bill. That’s not to say that Collective Soul and Live aren’t strong musical acts, but it certainly shows how much Traveler’s audience has changed since their early run of success at Red Rocks. The three bands will be on the road together through August, with each act headlining in different cities.

Collective Soul was the first act of the night, and during their set they mixed old favorites like the radio hits “December” and “Shine” with material from their most recent CD, “Afterwords” — including a great version of “Hollywood,” during which lead singer Ed Roland did his best Angus Young imitation on a few outtakes from AC/DC songs, including “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.” You could hear that Collective Soul has listened to a lot of hard rock in their day; some of guitarist Joel Kosche’s leads had a clear metal tinge to them.

Live’s performance was a mixed bag. One highlight was their minor key version of Johnny Cash’s hit “I Walk the Line.” The song started slowly, then built into a hard rock crescendo, yet somehow it worked, and it’s easy to see why Chris Daughtry ripped it off for a performance on “American Idol.”

For large portions of their set however, Live seemed to struggle. At one point, lead singer Ed Kowalczyk tried to get the audience to sing along to a riff on Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry,” but the response was tepid. Perhaps they weren’t as familiar with Live’s material, aside from the big hits from 1994’s breakout album “Throwing Copper.”

Certainly when Live launched into “I Alone” from that album, it woke up the somnambulant crowd. The set-closing “Lightning Crashes” got the best response of the night, and Chad Taylor played a fitting guitar solo to end it.

Blues Traveler walked onstage at close to 9 p.m. and launched into “Slow Change,” from their self-titled debut album. John Popper’s harmonica dazzled from the get-go. Popper likes to think of his harmonica like an electric guitar, taking over songs the way a lead guitarist would, and it is certainly reflected in the range of effects he puts on the instrument.

Sonically, the band sounded less compressed and more dynamic than either Collective Soul or Live. Traveler worked through a variety of new and old material. “Stand,” from their breakout CD “Four,” was an early highlight, featuring a crazed synthesizer solo from Ben Wilson and great scat singing from Popper, who displayed an impressive vocal range throughout the night.

Traveler has never been shy about experimenting with their songs. For a while, they used to change their signature hit “Run-Around” to an angry dirge, almost as if protesting the success of the tune. Last year, the band released a greatest hits compilation called “Cover Yourself,” in which they recorded acoustic versions of some of their best-known material. One of their biggest hits, “But Anyway,” got the acoustic treatment Friday night, and it seemed relatively flat. The danger of re-doing a song that has received such large airplay and been a concert staple for so long is that you expect to hear chord changes done a certain way, and the acoustic version didn’t seem to work properly as a result.

“Run-Around,” played straight this time, and “The Mountains Win Again,” both got the crowd singing. Wilson added some beautiful piano fills on the latter, while lead guitarist Chan Kinchla played a smooth melodic solo on the bridge. Just before “Run-Around,” the band played a brief section of “Crystal Flame,” and a fireworks show started in the sky behind the stage. The fireworks lasted about 20 minutes, and seemed occasionally to timed to the music.

Considering they have a new album, “North Hollywood Shootout,” due next month, it’s surprising that it took until the midway point to hear some of it. The first single is “You, Me and Everything,” and it’s an odd mish-mash of a song, almost as if the band is trying too hard to replicate the success of “Run-Around.” Wilson in particular plays a few strange synthesizer parts that sound jarring for a Blues Traveler show. Kinchla played acoustic guitar for part of the set, and Popper did play a nice extended harmonic solo.

Traveler finally showed that they still like to jam near the end of the set. Collective Soul’s Kosche came out for an extended version of “Mulling it Over” that was the highlight of the night, but did seem to confuse some people in the audience, who may only know Traveler from the radio. The band honored their jam roots with extended solos by Popper, Kinchla and Kosche. At one point, Kosche and Popper traded licks back and forth, duplicating each other’s efforts in a musical call-and-response before twining together, then playing off each other.

Traveler ended their set with another radio favorite, “Hook,” then returned for a two-song encore that included “Forever Owed” from the new album, which they dedicated to “anyone who has served overseas,” and a rocking version of “Crash Burn.”

Hearing “Mulling it Over,” it was easy for me to remember why I fell in love with Blues Traveler when I lived in New York in the early ’90s. At that time, they occupied an interesting spot on the burgeoning second-wave jam band scene — a little harder-edged than Widespread Panic and Spin Doctors, and more accessible than Phish. The band can still clearly jam; it’s too bad they don’t do more of it.

Reverb contributor Candace Horgan is a Denver-based writer.

Brian Carney is a regular Reverb contributor.

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