This past Friday night Trey Anastasio and his solo band ventured to the Allegany County Fairgrounds in Cumberland, Maryland to play two sets at DelFest. TAB hasn’t welcomed many guests over the years, so the band’s appearance at DelFest was quite unusual in that Del McCoury, Ronnie McCoury, Rob McCoury and Jason Carter sat in with them for two songs towards the start of the second set while the two younger McCourys and Carter also guested on the two-song encore.
[All Photos by Matthew Hebert]
Anastasio has a long history with DelFest host Del McCoury, whom the Phish front man counts as an influence. As Trey explained at the festival, he was introduced to Del’s music from Aquarium Rescue Unit mandolinist Matt Mundy during a tour Phish did with ARU in the early ’90s. Phish started covering Del’s Beauty Of My Dreams in 1997 and then brought the Del McCoury Band to their Camp Oswego festival in 1999. Not only did the Del McCoury Band perform on one of the side stages at Camp Oswego, they also sat in for four songs with Phish during the first set of the July 18, 1999 show at the Oswego County Airport. Del and his boys also guested with Phish at the June 22, 2000 show in Antioch, Tennessee. Even TAB has a history with the Del McCoury Band as the bluegrass legend’s band sat in on three songs at Trey’s February 25, 2010 show.
At DelFest, Del McCoury, Ronnie McCoury, Rob McCoury and Jason Carter emerged after the Gotta Jibboo second set opener for takes on I’m Blue, I’m Lonesome and Beauty Of My Dreams. The encore of Black Dog and Heavy Things featured Ronnie, Rob and Jason. We’ve compiled audio of all the sit-ins thanks to Rob Clarke’s audience recording and have come across a few videos from TAB @ DelFest. Also, we’ll share a batch of photos from the TAB set at DelFest courtesy of Matthew Hebert.
Audio…
Video…
[I’m Blue I’m Lonesome]
[Beauty Of My Dreams]
Setlist…
Set One: Cayman Review, Mozambique, Dark and Down, Drifting, Magilla, Pigtail, Spin, O-o-h Child, Last Tube, Wherever You Find It, Push On Til The Day
Set Two: Gotta Jibboo, I’m Blue I’m Lonesome*^, Beauty Of My Dreams*^, Valentine, Money Love and Change, Clint Eastwood, Sand, The Devil Went Down To Georgia, Let Me Lie, First Tube
Encore: Heavy Things^, Black Dog^
* with Del McCoury
^ with Ronnie McCoury, Rob McCoury and Jason Carter
Photos…
5 Responses
Heavy Dreams and The Black Dog.
Thanks for posting this. This was one of the best TAB sets I’ve seen in a long time. Trey was absolutely geeking out the entire time over getting to play Del’s festival, and seemed to still be on a high from the Kennedy Center performance.
I have a lot of friends who are seriously into bluegrass who were mad in advance that Trey was playing DelFest. It was great to see them all blown away by Trey’s performance, some praising it as the best sets ever played at DelFest.
The year before Antioch 2000, Jerry Douglas, Ronnie McCoury and Tim O’Brien sat in on 7/1/99.
nice shots matt!
Thanks for the kind words, phanart pete! hope you’ve dried out from #scamp. See you on the road!