Some 2,000 revelers celebrated Gov. John Hickenlooper and Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia’s second inauguration on Tuesday night with dinner and a concert on Capitol Hill, and the Democrat got some seasoned words from predecessors squeezed in among the tasty bites and tunes.

Echoing Hickenlooper’s first inaugural celebration four years ago — it also included a dinner at the Fillmore Auditorium and a concert featuring Colorado bands at the Ogden Theater — Garcia introduced former Govs. Dick Lamm, Roy Romer and Bill Ritter to offer advice to the governor.

“John, we’re all amazed you’ve done so well without our advice daily,” said Lamm, who served three terms starting in 1975. Even as his term was starting, Lamm said, it wasn’t too early to start thinking about how things would wrap up. “Don’t be in a hurry, but all good things end,” he said, advising that the governor would “need a real decompression” in four years.

“You’ve got one of the toughest jobs in the state — it’s like drinking out of a fire hydrant, and then, all of a sudden — how do you decompress?” Lamm said. “My advice is to get out of town for two or six months, write your memoirs, go teach, at the Woodrow Wilson School, do something like that. It’s really painful, or it’s not exactly a lot of fun to stay in town and look over the shoulder of your successor.”

He also urged Hickenlooper to make sure his staff and cabinet members find good jobs once it’s over.

Noting that “this is an evening both of fun and seriousness,” a fiery Romer said he was going to offer the “serious part.”

“My advice is, governor, lead a movement in this state to repeal the TABOR Amendment,” Romer said, prompting cheers from the crowd. “We need to invest in the future of our children’s education and the infrastructure of this state.”

Romer maintained that Colorado needs to return the power held by the constitutional amendment, which limits state revenue growth, among other things, to “the people’s representatives, the Legislature and the governor. We need to revise this tax system and do what the conservatives do, invest in the future of this state. We need to revise the TABOR Amendment and get a better tax system. It needs not a political action, it needs a movement. Governor, lead that movement!”

After Romer stepped aside, a smiling Ritter said he was going to amend his own advice by adding a bit: “Hire Roy Romer!” Ritter said. “He still has it.”

Then he offered a practical tip.

“Looking forward to four years from now, make sure you drive to your successor’s inauguration,” Ritter said. “Four years ago, my wife and I took a taxi home — we’d been driven around for four years and forgotten we needed a car.”

Ritter added that once Hickenlooper is out of office, folks will recognize his face but not be sure why, wondering whether he used to be their dentist, maybe had a show on TV. “And every time that happens, you should remember that every day of these last four years, you spent doing something meaningful for the people of this state,” he said.

After thanking his campaign staff, cabinet members and extended family and friends in town from all around the country, Hickenlooper spoke briefly about the next four years.

“We’re going to make Colorado the national model,” he said. “We’re going to be pro-business — you can have high standards to protect our air and our water; at the same time, an education system second to none and be the healthiest state in America — all in four years! I can’t do it without you — we need to make sure we have business and nonprofits and government all working together, that is the holy trinity.”

And with that, the lights aimed at the stage dimmed and the buffet stations filled up with Colorado-themed treats.

The $100-a-plate inaugural dinner was served by Occasions Catering, one of the event’s top-level sponsors. After snacking on polenta lollipops, party-goers could pile plates high with beer-braised beef short ribs, an elk sausage cassoulet, kale and green apple salad, a Brussels sprouts hash and something called winter lasagna.

The inaugural concert at the nearby Ogden Theater featured Colorado musicians the Lumineers, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, String Cheese Incident and Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats. OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder and The Fray’s Isaac Slade and his wife, Anna, were surprise guests on stage.

Midway through the String Cheese Incident set Hickenlooper took to the stage holding a banjo and did some picking and singing along with the jam band. Denver legend Hazel Miller, who had sung the national anthem at the morning’s inauguration ceremony at the State Capitol, joined Big Head Todd on stage for a number, too.

Tickets were $100 for the dinner and $75 for the concert, and whatever was left over would fund this summer’s Biennial of the Americas and the Colorado Scholarship Initiative, organizers of the governor’s inauguration said.

— Ernest@coloradostatesman.com

See the Jan. 16, 2015 edition for full photo coverage.