Back when he couldn’t afford concert tickets, Luke Miller used to climb a hill behind Red Rocks Amphitheater. He and his friends couldn’t see the band or the lights, but they could hear the music.

You could easily imagine the music-loving teenager dreaming of getting on that stage one day.

Soon, Miller did. For his high school graduation.

“It is kind of funny,” he says now. “That was technically my first time up there.”

There’s one detail of the dreamy memory that still stings. His high school band — the only band to have formed at his high school — was supposed to play during the ceremony. But, for some reason, they got sidelined.

“We were kind of salty about it,” Miller said.

This backstory provides the perfect set-up for Miller to pause and say, “Look at me now.”

But since he doesn’t say it that way, look at him now. Years after forming a jam band in college, Miller found himself on stage at Red Rocks again. It felt like “sweet redemption,” he said.

For most of the last dozen years, Lotus has headlined a show at the iconic venue in Morrison. The group, with members like Miller based in Denver, has drawn on its Colorado connection to become a staple Red Rocks act.

This weekend’s run of four dates will be as sweet as ever, as Lotus hosts the venue’s reopening — for its 80th season — after a rocky and quiet past year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s an honor for us to be the first band up there,” Miller said. “I’m going to be thrilled to be performing in front of people again.”

Along with the excitement of playing live music again, there’s the added excitement of making money from live music again.

That was something the pandemic took away from Lotus.

“We make pretty much all of our income from live shows,” Miller said. “And all that dried up instantly. It was kind of a scramble to make sure out bills were covered.”

To get by, members of the band found side work or provided child care for their families. Miller picked up work at a friend’s gourmet mushroom farm.

“We’re not going get rich on Lotus,” he said. “Even though we can play at places like Red Rocks, we’re still depending on live music for money.”

So, yes, the last year was a huge challenge. It was also a break he never would’ve taken, after 20-plus years spent on the road.

“Typically, if you take a break, you just watch the savings drain,” he said. “So I wasn’t going to do that on my own.”

That doesn’t mean he took a break from music.

Aside from the mushroom farm and forming a slight obsession with online chess, Miller found time to record a new solo album — for his side project called Luke the Knife — and two Lotus albums while quarantining at his Denver home.

“You can’t stop me from writing music,” he said. “It’s sort of an addiction.”

It’s kept him going.

“If I wasn’t doing that, I’d be doing the old stare at the window thing way too much,” he said. “It definitely helped me.”

It also gave Miller time to look back on the last two decades chasing his dreams. It wasn’t also as rosy as headlining Red Rocks for 8,000 fans. In fact, usually Lotus is playing for as little as 800 people in other cities.

“I feel like I’m going to come back and appreciate the crappy gigs more,” Miller said, speaking about bad stage lighting or late flights. “At the end of the day, live music is about community and making memories. I think we realized how much people need that.”