Drummer Brian Loftus doing OK after collapsing on stage at Ford Amphitheater in Vail

Drummer Brian Loftus says he’s thankful to be feeling fine after collapsing and being rushed off stage at the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater on Aug. 26.

Loftus was playing with the Shakedown Family Band at one of the amphitheater’s final shows of the summer, a free community concert for locals. The event caused an early end to the show, leaving many to wonder what had happened.

Loftus said one of the last things he remembers was the band playing really well together.

“We were really having a great time, so I’m more disappointed than anything,” he said. “But I’m so grateful to the community for caring about me and wanting to know what happened.”

Loftus said he’s still waiting for a more official medical report but he thinks he suffered some kind of seizure or brain disturbance. He doesn’t remember any of it, but came out of it feeling OK.

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“I’m doing good, was able to talk later that night, and a couple days later I was able to sit down and try it again,” he said of playing the drums.

The moment was all too familiar, though. In 2017, Loftus was playing on stage and suffered a brain aneurysm and collapsed. A brain scan at that time showed an arteriovenous malformation in his brain, which looked like “a tangle of arteries and veins in my brain,” he said.

Loftus was treated successfully at the University of Colorado, where doctors were able to shrink the malformation and prevent it from causing an aneurysm.

In the years that followed Loftus played benefit concerts and events that helped people through music before moving to Connecticut in 2020 to spend more time with his mother, who had fallen ill during the pandemic.

In coming back to Vail in August, Loftus said he wanted to get right back to playing with the people he knew and loved from the area.

Loftus spent decades in Vail playing with Tony G as was one half of the popular local duo BLT, and was in town for Gulizia’s celebration of life, which was held Sept. 1.

But he wanted to play as much as he could while he was in town and took on the Ford Amphitheater gig right away on Aug. 26. It was a special show, as the Ford Amphitheater was getting ready to close out the season and had planned a couple of free concerts for locals, with this being the second-to-last show of the summer.

Avon resident Geoff Mintz was in attendance and said it was a great set from the Shakedown Family Band.

“They were really in tune with one another and flowing well,” Mintz said. “They had played maybe eight or 10 great songs and were jamming together when all-of-a-sudden we saw Scott Rednor (vocalist and guitarist) rush over to Brian. We all kind of knew at that moment that the show was over.”

Loftus said in coming back to Colorado, stricken with grief over the loss of Tony G, then immediately traveling up to high elevation in Vail and taking on a high-pressure, high-energy show, he may have overexerted himself.

“I was just trying to keep it going, that’s the only reason I was up there playing with those guys,” he said. “I was just trying to come back and keep being part of the community up there, because I love it.”

Now back in Connecticut, Loftus says he’s going to take a couple of months to figure things out with his doctors. He said losing Gulizia, and the grief that has come with that, has had him thinking a lot about life in recent months. In returning to Vail to celebrate Gulizia, the experience helped Loftus realize he wants to come back to Eagle County, hopefully as soon as this winter, to continue playing.

“I’m devastated I can’t resume with him,” Loftus said of Gulizia. “But I can resume with other people in town, because I do love this community.”

Loftus said the jokes have already started, which has been a fun and funny outcome.

“They’re gonna set up a mattress behind me, I’m gonna have to play in a helmet, you name it,” he said with a laugh. “I knew that was coming.”