For jam band fans, the days leading to New Year’s Eve and the night itself may be the holiest of holidays. This is when the bands they love lay down roots in a chosen town and play multi-night runs of shows that are often filled with surprises. This might mean guests, stunts, costume parties, or elaborate theatrics to close out the year with a bang. Then there is Leftover Salmon, where every performance feels like a festive celebration. In fact, this has been the jam grass outfit’s entire MO for thirty-five years, and yes, they are celebrating that too. To properly put a bow on 2024, Leftover Salmon launched the first of two shows at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon on Monday, December 30th.
If there was an MVP of the evening, it was, without question, Jason Carter. The talented fiddle player kicked things off with his own band, delivering a set that balanced more traditional bluegrass sounds with a progressive edge. He would return for most of Salmon’s two sets, putting in three solid hours of playing. Backed by a crew of top-notch pickers, Carter charged through a handful of originals and well-chosen covers. Their take on the Waylon Jennings classic “Lonesome, On’ry and Mean” stood out with Frank Evans’ driving banjo and included an appearance from Carter’s new bride and bonafide fiddle rockstar Bronwyn Keith-Hynes of Molly Tuttle’s Golden Highway. Keith-Hynes treated the crowd to her own tune “Will You Ever Be Mine,” starting off with charming harmonies before giving way to a fast-paced barn burner. Throughout their set, Carter and his struck the right chord between high-octane moments and classier fare, with highlights including a down-and-dirty “Ain’t No Rest For the Wicked” and bassist Jed Clark howling his way through a rousing take on the Grateful Dead’s “Cold Rain and Snow.”
One of Leftover Salmon’s best traits has always been their ability to work an array of genres into their sound, exploring a multitude of musical flavors in a given set. At Revolution Hall, they started things off in country-rock mode with a rollicking cover of “Six Days On The Road” followed by “Gulf of Mexico.” They took it back to their early days with the bouncy and tropical boogie fest “Carnival Time” with some buoyant organ playing from Jay Starling. With the dance party now in full swing, they ramped it up with “Muddy Water Home” before segueing into a version of Little Feat’s “Sailin’ Shoes” that saw Andy Thorn soaring off into banjo solo bliss and stirring up a free-flowing, funk-layered group jam session. Other standouts of the first set included Starling’s feisty dobro work on “Live It High,” Drew Emmitt leading the band through a poignant version of “Light Behind the Rain” infused with atmospheric instrumentals, and Starling and drummer Alwyn Robinson embarking on a jazz fusion jam that set the tone for Keith-Hynes and Carter to bust out an off-the-cuff fiddle duel. This latter part of the set saw the band laying into one of their biggest jams of the night, with the members exchanging joy with the audience before closing on a high note with the rowdy combination of “Cash On The Barrelhead” and the uptempo bluegrass stomper “Riding the L & N.”
Following a set break that included a slide show of photos from the last thirty-five years, Leftover Salmon returned to the stage and got the party going with yet another celebration: the birthday of the late John Hartford. The playful folk-grass tune “Steam Powered Aereo Plane” set the tone, followed by the sunny “Liza.” The band picked up speed for the wild bluegrass romp “All Night Ride” and a version of their old-timey tune “Blues In a Bottle” that featured an energetic fiddle from Carter and Emmitt laying down a bluesy slide solo on his mandolin. They paid tribute to their late bandmate, banjo player Mark Vann, as well as their genre-busting roots, with “Funky Mountain Fogdown” before launching a version of the Grateful Dead’s “Black Peter” that included one of the most sprawling jams of the night and eased beautifully into Drew Emmitt’s eloquent cover of “Morning Dew.” Stretching past the curfew, the band steered towards the finish line with a massive group Cajun music jam that saw a triple fiddle attack from Emmitt, Carter, and Keith-Hynes.
The show to be at in any New Year’s run is obviously New Year’s Eve, but Leftover Salmon’s precursor on Monday was just as festive and featured no shortage of musical highlights for the dancing crowd to savor. As bluegrass has exploded in recent years with acts like Billy Strings filling arenas, Leftover Salmon has earned their place as one of the genre’s most enduring and influential acts for a younger generation of artists who respect tradition but also want to push boundaries. Thirty-five years into their career, with various members having come and gone, Leftover Salmon remains in fine form, and on the first of their two shows in Portland, it was clear they intend to keep the party going right into 2025.
All photos by Greg Homolka
