On January 18, 1978 a group of hungry young musicians stepped onto the stage for the first time and changed bluegrass music. Exactly forty years later, the members of Hot Rize found themselves onstage at the Aladdin in Portland, Oregon reminiscing about how it all began and playing tunes. The influential bluegrass outfit is currently on tour celebrating four decades together, and Thursday’s performance happened to be the exact date it all began, making for an extra special night of music.
Throughout their first set, the members of Hot Rize would showcase their ability to flip from traditional sounds to the more progressive styles that made them so influential. Opening with “Blue Night” was a wise move as it allowed each band member to take a quick solo. They stuck to older material with “Hard Pressed”, a bluegrass-driven tune that seemed to speak to our troubled times. Other highlights of the first set included “Sky Rider” – an instrumental that found Pete Wernick leading the pack with his intricate banjo progressions – the honky tonk bluegrass number “Walk the Way the Wind Blows”, a colorful rendition of Los Lobos’ “Burn It Down” with Wernick adding a psychedelic sitar effect to his banjo, and Tim O’Brien taking the reins on the haunting fiddle tune “Working On A Building”.
Sandwiched in between two sets of Hot Rize was a brief but entertaining appearance by the band’s country and western alter ego, Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers. Bedazzled in bright suits and tassels, the band played a quick yet sharp set of country music that included the George Jones classic “Window Up Above” and their desert surf rock instrumental “Flying Saucer Motorcourt”. Even though Red Knuckles put on a silly, slapstack comedy routine, the wildly entertaining set proved that these fellas know their way around country music more than they let on and can even add a little comic relief here and there.
Returning to the stage for the third time, Hot Rize spent their last set with a career-spanning selection of tunes, many of which were played at the requests of fans. “Blue Is Falling” was feisty and rambling with rich vocal harmonies, while “Doggone” struck a nerve with bassist Nick Forster pointing out that the lyrics could represent a certain “very stable” president. The band joked about its newest member Bryan Sutton only being a Hot Rize member for sixteen years before letting him show off his guitar picking skills with Doc Watson’s flatpicking classic “Black Mountain Rag” and the “guilt-free gospel” number “I Am The Road”. “Just Like You” was a mournful country tune, with Wernick’s conciliatory “let me tell you my friend” striking a soft spot.
The band would close out the evening with a handful of encores, including their hyper-speed take on the bluegrass staple “Shady Grove” and the harmonious road song “Midnight on the Highway”. By the end of more than two hours of music, the members of Hot Rize showed Portland that while they may have aged as people, their musicianship is sharper than ever. Their performance was filled with everything you could want from a bluegrass performance: impressive picking with plenty of solos, sad songs, hymns and spirituals, country, blues and colorful harmonies. They left the stage to a standing ovation from a crowd who recognizes them as masters of the form and who can only hope for forty more years of Hot Rize.
All photos by Greg Homolka.
