Believe it or not we’re approaching the 10th anniversary of the formation of Bustle In Your Hedgerow. As the story goes, our own Aaron Stein dreamed up the idea of having guitarist Scott Metzger, drummer Joe Russo and keyboardist Marco Benevento play Led Zeppelin covers on a boat cruise around Manhattan to celebrate promoter Jake Szufnarowski’s 30th birthday in 2003. The idea took and soon the trio recruited Ween bassist Dave Dreiwitz and took the name “Bustle In Your Hedgerow” as their own. Up until this past Saturday night, Bustle had never played Bonnaroo and according to Metzger had never had a singer guest with them.
[Photo by Mitch Crasson]
Bustle finally made their Bonnaroo debut last weekend with a late-night set that followed the Rock n’ Soul Dance Party Superjam at This Tent. One of the guests for the Jim James/John Oates-led Superjam was none other than Alabama Shakes front woman Brittany Howard. Howard stuck around and took the honors as Bustle In Your Hedgerow’s first guest singer. Metzger told us that Brittany sang Darlene and The Lemon Song with Bustle and that “she absolutely murdered both.” The guitarist also informed us that Darlene was Howard’s request and that Bustle had never played the track off 1982’s Coda previously. In fact, Led Zeppelin themselves never played Darlene in concert.
All in all Metzger thought Bustle’s Bonnaroo debut was “a fun set made even more fun by our special guest.” We’ve come across three really short clips of Bustle with Brittany Howard in action at Bonnaroo:
