South Park 25th Anniversary Concert With Trey Parker And Matt Stone Is Coming To Red Rocks

"South Park" began its life as a series of crudely animated short film called "The Spirit of Christmas," which Matt Stone and Trey Parker made while students at the University of Colorado. The first short, made with paper cutouts, featured several small boys witnessing an ultra-violent fight between Jesus Christ and Frosty the Snowman. It was all very amusing. When Brian Graden, a Fox executive, saw "The Spirt of Christmas," he gave Stone and Parker $1,000 to remake it as a personal video Christmas card he was going to share with friends. The central fight was changed to Jesus Christ fighting Santa Claus, with the conflict being resolved by words of wisdom from Olympic figure skater Brian Boitano. It was distributed in Christmas of 1995. The short soon broke out online — back when it took hours to download a five-minute short — and began causing a sensation on the cult circuit; this author saw "The Spirit of Christmas" at a Spike & Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation in 1996. The redux of "The Spirit of Christmas" codified the setting as South Park, Colorado, and introduced the characters to be carried into a "South Park" TV series that debuted on Comedy Central on August 13, 1997. 

25 years later, "South Park" is still on the air, and was recently renewed through a 30th season. Stone and Parker made a "South Park" musical feature film in 1999, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song ("Blame Canada"). They also released a "South Park" record called "Chef Aid," produced by Rick Rubin, and which featured hot bands of the day like Primus, Master P, Ween, Wyclef Jean, Devo, Rancid, DMX, Ozzy Osbourne, The Crystal Method, Ol' Dirty Bastard, and Elton John. Also, just for fun, Stone and Parker once bought a restaurant franchise based on their enthusiasm for it expressed in a "South Park" episode.

To celebrate the show's 25th anniversary, Comedy Central announced that a "South Park" concert will be held on Wednesday, August 10, 2022, at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver, CO, with Parker and Stone attending. Ticket registration is currently open.

The concert will feature songs from the show, which are plentiful. For the bulk of the series, the character of Chef, played by Isaac Hayes, would often dispense advice to the show's young protagonists with an inappropriate bedroom anthem. The concert will also feature Mark Shaiman's songs from 1999's "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut." The opening acts will be Primus, whose frontman Les Claypool performed the "South Park" theme song, as well as longtime rock kooks Ween. Primus is currently touring, performing the entirety of Rush's album "A Farewell to Kings." Ween will begin their own tour in November.

The way you can buy tickets is a multi-step process, because concert-going can never, ever be easy.

Step 1: Instead of "ass," say "buns." Like "kiss my buns," or "you're a buns-hole."

Step 2: Go to the South Park AXS website. You will have to pay $1 to register for ticket purchase. You'll have to do this before March 20, 2022 at 11:59 PM Mountain Time.

Step 3: You will receive an e-mail notification on March 23, declaring if you are eligible to buy tickets. You will only be allowed to purchase two tickets. 

Step 4: Tickets are $99 each, although that does not include fees. 

Step 5: Check confirmation of your purchase through the AXS portal, where the tickets will be delivered. 

Step 6: If you're selected for early purchase, hooray. Hop on your It Vehicle, and zip on up to Denver. If you're not selected, mourn appropriately and wait for further ticket sales announcements. Immediately begin trawling eBay for sketchy-looking sellers on the secondary market. Or just become a close personal friend of Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Ween, or Primus. They could probably hook you up with a backstage pass. It would also help if you became the CEO of AXS, or a manager at the Red Rocks Amphitheater. Start working on any of those things, and you should be golden.