Disturbed released Live at Red Rocks on November 18, 2016. The live album captured their August 15 performance at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado, during the tour supporting Immortalized. Its 16 tracks put songs from the band’s early records alongside the material that had accompanied their return from hiatus.
The band announced the album in October and offered the concert recording of “The Light” as an advance download with preorders. It was one of three songs from Immortalized in the Red Rocks set, alongside “The Vengeful One” and “The Sound of Silence.”
Immortalized had arrived in 2015 after a recording process the band deliberately kept quiet. As USA Today reported that August, the secrecy extended to friends and many family members. It also affected their return to touring: approaching promoters and booking venues would have risked revealing that Disturbed were working again, so a full tour had to wait until 2016. By the time they reached Red Rocks, the return had become a summer amphitheater run co-headlined with Breaking Benjamin, with Alter Bridge and Saint Asonia supporting. The Colorado show was part of that four-band bill.
For vocalist David Draiman, the venue had been an ambition long before that tour. In a December 2016 interview with Loudwire, he traced his introduction to Red Rocks to watching U2 perform there on video when he was young. Asked why Disturbed chose this concert for the album, he pointed to the band’s excitement about finally playing the venue and the way the audience sounded in it. “We just seemed to play with an extra amount of exuberance and energy that night,” he said.
The selection reached across all six studio albums Disturbed had released by 2016. Their debut, The Sickness, supplied four songs, including “The Game” and the closing “Down with the Sickness,” while “The Animal” represented Asylum. The newer material was woven into that history: “The Vengeful One” appeared early in the set, and “The Sound of Silence” followed “Stupify.” The running order connected the comeback album to the debut without separating the newer songs into their own block.
The cover had also widened the audience, according to guitarist Dan Donegan. Speaking to Metal Covenant in March 2017, he described older listeners reconsidering the band after hearing “The Sound of Silence,” alongside younger fans discovering them. He viewed the live album as a way for people in places Disturbed hadn’t visited to hear the crowd interaction and Draiman’s exchanges with the audience.
Donegan also addressed how much work happened after the show. “We didn't go back in the studio to touch anything,” he said. The recording still went through a mix, handled by the engineer responsible for the band’s in-ear monitors. That work took place on the road, with some additional mixing at home during breaks between tours.
