Andrew Bender

All Good Diary: Saturday FestivalLog + New Artist Fletcher’s Grove Spotlight

Andrew Bender July 19, 2011 No Comments

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.

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

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All Good Diary: Umphrey’s, Furthur and Galactic = One Full Friday

Andrew Bender July 17, 2011 No Comments

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.

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

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All Good Diary: At The Beginning

Andrew Bender July 16, 2011 No Comments

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.

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

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All Good Diary: The Action Starts

Andrew Bender July 14, 2011 No Comments

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

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Review: Phish @ Riverbend Music Center

Andrew Bender June 7, 2011 No Comments

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.

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

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