Over the weekend, Tedeschi Trucks Band played two shows at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Ahead of the shows, the husband-and-wife blues-rock duo shared a print on Instagram that was also available for purchase at the venue. But some were skeptical. The post was inundated with comments accusing the band of using AI to generate the artwork, pointing out dubious names for the credited “collection of artists,” and criticizing the illustration for not looking like Red Rocks at all. There aren’t even any stairs!
The poster art comes from Brilliant Workshop, an Instagram account that’s only been up and running for two months and has fewer than 200 followers. This is the first piece Brilliant Workshop has shared on Instagram, and Chapin Atchison, who appears to be the brand director for the brand, wrote at the time of the poster’s announcement:
This set of contrasting diptychs is a love letter to the majestic Red Rocks venue, celebrating the eternal dance of nature and sound. Visualize the unforgettable experiences and everlasting memories of experiencing live music on nature’s greatest stage. Each poster tells half a story, sing along together. From dusk to dawn, the sun and moon rotate positions. The eagle and wolf trade places on the skyline and in the shadows. An eager crowd awaits Derek. [Trucks]Susan [Tedeschi]and the whole band comes on stage. The landscape watches in silence as the music throbs to life where the rocks touch the sky.
AI-generated music videos have caused a lot of controversy in the music world, but Tedeschi and Trucks say they were unaware that the images were created with AI. Yesterday the band apologized. In a statement, they said:
Yesterday, our fan community reported that the Red Rocks poster art may have been created by Al. We want to express our appreciation for the fan interest in the creative community. In our development process, we saw this as giving artists with established portfolios in other artistic disciplines their first opportunity to create a gig poster.
We are investigating this situation and have asked the artist to provide files explaining their creative process. We have not received this information at this time and apologize to our artist community for this unfortunate situation. Going forward, we will improve our review process to prevent this from happening again.
All proceeds from poster sales last night and tonight will go to Access Gallery.
I think it’s okay to just call it ugly. Also, check out these related posts:
