My favorite part of the summer months is the abundance of multi artist music festivals that take place throughout the east coast.
At the end of May, I spent some time in upstate New York at the Mountain Jam IV festival. It was a blast – although I was slightly dissapointed with the overall lineup throughout the weekend, Umphrey’s McGee once again put on one of the most explosive live performances I’ve ever seen. Aside from Umphrey’s, Medeski Martin Scofield and Wood were entertaining, and Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk laid down some of the funkiest and grooviest live music I’ve heard in quite some time. First time I had even heard them, and I was blown away. Galactic put on a heavy show at 2:00 AM (which I chose over Lotus, who was playing at the same time), and I enjoyed Dark Star Orchestra faithfully recreated Grateful Dead’s tunes. For the rest of the festival, though, I was pretty dissapointed – my first time seeing Gov’t Mule, they played twice, and I couldn’t come to grasp what makes them have such a large fan following – decent, but I wouldn’t pay to see them alone. Warren Haynes seems to have the entire stage to himself, even though there is a band behind him – they could call Gov’t Mule “The Warren Haynes Band” and it wouldn’t be a big deal at all. Michael Franti was dissapointing, too, his setlist was identical to the one he played three years ago at Big Summer Classic, same breakdowns and everything. Although I much prefer Franti’s recorded works to seeing him live.
This week, Allgood Music Festival 2008 takes place. Really fucking pumped for this. Four days of nonstop music, and while Umphrey’s won’t be playing there, a number of other bands and artists will…
The Join – the name given to any one of The New Deal’s side projects (where two members of The New Deal sit in with two or more members from another band), this time comprised of Jamie Shields and Darren Shearer from The New Deal with Marco Benevento and Joe Russo from the Benevento/Russo Duo. Really excited to see this act as The New Deal is one of my more favorite instrumental jams I’ve come across in the past two years or so – they’re playing the late night show on Thursday. Two keyboards, two drum kits, four dudes. Going to be awesome.
Keller Williams and the WMD’s – Last time I saw Keller, it was his solo act where he plays every instrument by himself and loops them through a pedal. With the WMD’s, he’s got a full four piece band. Really excited to see this, as it adds a lot of depth to Keller’s musical sound.
Widespread Panic – This will be my third time seeing Widespread, and I’m sure it will be a classic southern jam band experience. Groovy rhythms and solid harmonics, can’t really go wrong here.
Mike Gordon – Former Phish bassist, and I really like his solo stuff, being a bassist meself. I’ve never seen Phish live, so this is the closest I’ll probably ever get.
Some other noteables – Medeski Martin Scofield and Wood, Dark Star Orchestra, Tea Leaf Green, Railroad Earth, Lettuce, Hot Buttered Rum String Band, Bonerama, and The Pnuma Trio.
Really looking forward to this. Of course, I’ll be a couple miles away from a computer, and the internets, so things could get a bit rough. Here’s to hoping for a good weekend, though.
Image from the official Mountain Jam blog.
Related posts:
- NYAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHH BOOTS, CLOTHES, MOTORCYCLE. If you’ve never heard of Austrian Death...
- More mashup goodness: The White Stripes reimagined My mashup collection is growing. Huge. First, there was Danger...
- She scratches a letter – into a wall, made of stone, Maybe some day, another child, won’t feel, as alone...
