Posts by Andrew Bender

Full coverage of Metallica’s second annual Orion Music + More from an HT perspective

A review of a very special Greensky Bluegrass show.

Andrew Bender on the All Good Music Festival finale.

A recap and photos from Saturday at the 2012 edition of All Good.

A full report and photo set from Friday at the All Good Music Festival.

Would the move to Ohio make entry to All Good Music Festival easier this year? Andrew Bender checks in.

Tim Walther tells us what to expect at this year’s All Good Festival.

Andrew Bender’s thoughts and photos on Greensky Bluegrass NYE performances.

Hoxeyville Music Festival: Aug. 19 – 21

Set on 80 acres of northern Michigan field and forest, the 9th Annual Hoxeyville Music Festival proved once again that a homegrown music fest can give fans an experience that corporate sponsorships and venture capital simply cannot touch. However, one must also take heed that if the biggest festivals can be rife with organizational SNAFUs, then smaller fests can be a veritable logistical clusterfuck. As with many small festivals, the emphasis tends to fall as much on the overall experience as the music itself. To that end, Hoxeyville featured its own disc golf course, surprisingly tasty food from local vendors and an incredible a host of the best roots music that Michigan has to offer as well as regional up-and-comers and national headlining acts.

This year’s Hoxeyville Festival kicked off with a special Thursday ‘Soundcheck’ performance by Kalamazoo, Michigan stringsters Greensky Bluegrass. Those who arrived in time to see the band were witness to the chaos of fences still being erected, volunteers giving conflicting info to festivalgoers and other issues that shouldn’t have been. A word to festival organizers everywhere – if you’re going to invite people to come a day early, please be prepared for their arrival. But despite the low-level chaos, confusion and clamoring sounds of fence posts being pounded into the ground, I’d still return again and again if invited back.

Slated to play a 90-minute set on Saturday, HT favorites Greensky Bluegrass treated a smaller group of pre-sale ticket buyers, VIPs, and media to a somewhat relaxed but ultimately killer set of originals and covers. Highlights from the set included Dry County > Time (Pink Floyd cover) > Dry County, Little Red Corvette, Help! and Beat It as well as apropos renditions of Hoxeyville, and Tied Down (to Michigan) in addition to tunes from their recently released Handguns EP including the title track and I’d Probably Kill You. Mandolin player Paul Hoffman commented that they knew the names all of the couple of hundred people in attendance for the soundcheck set – rather fitting given this year marked Greensky’s eighth consecutive appearance, truly making them the Hoxeyville house band.

READ ON for more on Hoxeyville 2011…

After a Saturday jam-packed with music at the 15th annual All Good Music Festival, I was looking forward to Sunday’s lighter lineup. One of the biggest challenges of open field tent camping at a music festival is partying  into the wee hours and trying to get adequate sleep, without being cooked alive in your tent in the morning summer sun like broccoli in a bamboo steamer.

After waking up in my own personal sauna and cooling off in the West Virginia mountain air I headed up to the stage area where Sunday openers All Mighty Senators were already on the main Dragon Stage. The Baltimore-based funk-soul quintet was working hard to bring their P-Funkesque sound to the noontime set; unfortunately, their set was one of the less well attended of the weekend, probably because so many folks had taken full advantage of Saturday’s final All Good late night sets – or they were still in their tents, being braised in their own juices.

Following the Senators on the Dragon Stage were Michigan-based stringsters Greensky Bluegrass whose Saturday Rock n’ Roll in Disguise playshop set at the Grassroots Stage showed one reason why they continue to garner attention. Unlike the previous day that featured covers of songs by Talking Heads, Prince and Traffic, Sunday’s set featured mostly originals and roots covers. A sizeable audience was on hand to see GB play mostly older tunes like All Four, the Reverend and No Idea which were supplemented by a strong cover of Townes Van Zandt’s White Freightliner Blues. Closing our their hour long set mandolin player Paul Hoffman took lead vocals on a newer original tune Don’t Lie (not to be confused with the Black Eyed Peas song of the same name) that demonstrated even greater maturity in their consistently skillful songwriting.

• All Good 2011: Preview, Thursday, Friday, Saturday

READ ON for more from Sunday at the All Good fest…

I made a point of getting up early on Saturday morning of the 15th Annual All Good Music Festival to catch some of the local talent at the Grassroots Stage. Having been told by numerous local media sources that they were a hot ticket, I made a point of seeing a bit of Fletcher’s Grove from nearby Morgantown. As usual, I was not as quick making the trek as I’d hoped and arrived about halfway through the fledgling jamband’s first set, just as they were finishing a very strong cover of Buddy Holly’s classic Not Fade Away.

The next few songs in the quintet’s inaugural All Good set proved once again that festivals are a great place to check out fresh talent. See more about Fletcher’s Grove in the All Good New Artist Spotlight below. As local favorites, Fletcher’s Grove brought a sizable audience to the campground stage that quckly cleared after their set. I waited around to see a bit of Chicago’s Lubriphonic whose funk and horns also proved danceable and fun, although it was a shame there wasn’t a larger audience.

Opening the main stage on Saturday was self-contained band Zach Deputy whose soulful vocals and looping guitar and beat lines made for a more relaxed set under the West Virginia hills’ intense mid-day sun. After Deputy, I caught only the first couple of songs by The Werks (which the audience seemed to enjoy) and headed back to the Grassroots Stage to see Michigan’s Greensky Bluegrass, where they performed only bluegrass covers of rock songs including Traffic’s Light Up or Leave Me Alone, Talking Heads’ Road to Nowhere, Arcade Fire’s City With No Children and Prince’s When Doves Cry.

• Previously From All Good 2011: Preview, Thursday, Friday

READ ON for more thoughts and photos from Saturday at All Good…

Andrew Bender’s reports from the 15th Annual All Good Music Festival continue with his take and photos from Friday…

After waking up on Friday morning and scarfing down some food, I made my way up to the Grassroots Stage in the campground to see The Recipe, who provided a fun, early morning performance, though not anything that left me begging for more musically. Leading off music at the main stage, Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad delivered their dub reggae hip-hop vibes, assaulting the crowd with some heavy beats. After a short set, Infamous Stringdusters brought their traditional bluegrass tunes to All Good which were perfect in the early afternoon heat.

One the defining features of the All Good festival has been the lack of competing stages. However, in recent years All Good promoters have added a campground or Grassroots Stage featuring lesser known or more local acts. Those generally start before music begins on the two main stages, and last year the Campground Stage featured Greensky Bluegrass and Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad both of whom were upgraded to early day, mainstage slots for this year’s festival.

However, this year the festival organizers teamed with some of the scene’s charitable organizations: HeadCount, the Rex Foundation and Rock the Earth. So, I hiked up to the Campground stage age where Head Count was hosting an interview with Furthur drummer Joe Russo.

• All Good Diary: The Action Starts, At The Beginning

READ ON for Andrew’s thoughts and photos from Umphrey’s, Furthur and Galactic at All Good plus much more…

The setting sun behind the rolling hills of West Virginia provided a fittingly bucolic backdrop for the opening performances of the 15th Annual All Good Music Festival.  The mountaintop festival site was already well filled in when we rolled in just before noon, and by the time dusk approached, the party was in full swing.

Opening the weekend’s long roster of festival favorites was the West Coast’s Hot Buttered Rum.  At most festivals I’ve been to, the audience attendance at opening act is somewhat lacking. Luckily, this was not the case at this year’s All Good, a festival that sold out their 4-day festival passes almost a week in advance of the event.  Estimates of attendance at Thursday night are approximately 18,000.  According to festival sources, last year’s festival was capped at an attendance of 25,000, and there’s some expectation that this year should approach or surpass last year’s total attendance.

This was only the second time I had seen HBR since their transition from Hot Buttered Rum String Band a few years, and I continue to be impressed with their direction from the straight-up bluegrass roots to a rhythm infused act more in line with Railroad Earth or String Cheese Incident of many years ago. Notable highlights from Hot Buttered Rum’s set included a hot cover of New Minglewood Blues, an enthusiastic and well received Limbs Akimbo, and Busted in Utah. In betweet sets, DJ Who laid down some beats and kept the party going while the main stage was cleared and set up for Beats Antique – a trio act merging members of Yard Dogs Road Show, Aphrodesia, with dance and drums for a mutli-instrumental, rhythm and heavy bass laden performance.

• All Good Diary: The Action Starts

READ ON for more from Andrew about Day One of All Good…

The 15th Annual All Good Music Festival kicked off today on Marvin’s Mouuntaintop near Masontown, WV. The festival has won many fans over the years as it primarily features only one act at a time on alternating stages. This year’s headliners include Furthur, Primus, Pretty Lights, STS9 and more with each slated for multi-hour timeslots. […]

Phish @ Riverbend Music Center, June 5

Returning to Cincinnati’s Riverbend Music Center for the first time in over ten years, the band continued pushing limits, retesting recently played favorites and treating the crowd with tour debuts of rare fan favorites. Sunday’s Cincinnati show maintained the broader organizational theme of the recent tour with a more upbeat first set and more extended, darker psychedelic jamming in the second.

[All photos by Andrew Bender]

Phish opened with a solid AC/DC Bag that led straight into Punch You in the Eye, a song that Page always shines on in the song’s second half. As with the Hood > Have Mercy > Hood sandwich the night before, a number of fans were transported back in time the by the classic combo. Despite the sweltering June evening, the opening notes of Bathtub Gin was met with hoots and laughter as the invasive plinking of Page’s keys fueled the audience’s smiley, sweaty silliness. A somewhat short, albeit very tight, version of Bathtub was followed by Taste which brought out the best of everyone in its masterfully intense frenetic jam as extra flourishes of snare-cymbal and keys were answered by odd triplets from Trey while Gordon’s steadying yet mesmerizing bass lines walked the others around the jam. After Taste’s intense climax, the mellifluous sounds of a rare Lawn Boy gave the sweating crowd a welcome break. “Mike’s bass on Lawn Boy always gets me,” commented Biff the Whoopie Cushion and bass player for Florida’s New Gravity.

• Phish @ Riverbend: Setlist & The Skinny

READ ON for more on Sunday night’s Phish show…