2011

Umphrey’s McGee – January 28th, Best Buy Theater

Words: Scott Bernstein
Images: Jeremy Gordon

Since first performing at the iconic Wetlands Preserve in 1999, the Big Apple has served as a home away from home for the Chicago-by-way-of-South Bend sextet Umphrey’s McGee. The band has watched the size of its NYC fanbase grow from a handful at those early gigs, to the thousands who have packed the group’s Best Buy Theater performances over the past five years by constantly returning to the city about every six months.

[All photos by Jeremy Gordon]

Just when fans got used to having Umphrey’s around, the band took a break from New York City shows by not scheduling any gigs within 30 miles of the country’s largest city  for the 11-month period leading up to the group’s long-awaited return this past Friday. Not only would UM perform at the mid-sized Best Buy Theater on Friday, but they also scheduled a more intimate show at Brooklyn Bowl three nights later. Adding to the intrigue was  sound caresser Kevin Browning’s announcement that he would be working from the band’s Chicago headquarters after 12 years on the road starting on February 1st, a date that would make the Brooklyn Bowl show his last behind the board.

The two shows were completely different in terms of not only the music, but the composition and energy of the crowd. Fans over 16 could attend the Best Buy performance, while only those over 21 years of age could get in to the Brooklyn Bowl. Younger Umphreaks, who were found in large numbers on Friday night, were much more outwardly enthusiastic and it was hard not to get caught up in their excitement. Brooklyn Bowl featured a much more subdued audience, but that’s not to say the crowd was playing tiddlywinks and chatting the night away.

READ ON for more on Umphrey’s return to New York City…

After releasing remastered editions of three shows from the first leg of Phish’s Summer Tour 2010, JEMP Records put out three more remasters from the second leg yesterday. For each of these releases, Fred Kevorkian takes Live Phish engineer Jon Altschiller’s original live mixes and remasters them for our pleasure. The latest batch of remasters includes the second and third nights of the Greek Theatre run (8/6 & 8/7/2010), plus the second night of the Deer Creek run (8/13/2010).

[Photo by Dave Vann]

Our friends at JEMP have provided us some remastered tracks to share, so you can sample the quality of these releases. They also sent a few blurbs about each performance written by Phish archivist Kevin Shapiro to give a little background on these shows.

Show #1 = 8/6/2010 – Greek Theatre

• Sample: Simple

[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/simple.mp3]

Kevin Shapiro on 8/6/2010: On Friday August 6, 2010, Phish played the second show of a sold out three-night stand at the Greek Theatre. The Greek Berkeley is a Greek Revival style, open-air amphitheater built in 1903 with a cozy capacity of about 8,500 and stunning views of the San Francisco Bay including the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges. This run, which began Leg 2 of the summer tour, was the band’s first visit to this venue since they closed their epic summer 1993 tour there. J.J. Cale opened the show in 1993 (joined by Trey and Mike for a sit-in) but in 2010 it was just three smoking nights of Phish. After a solid opening night on Thursday, during which Trey debuted his latest custom guitar with a special chant for luthier Paul Languedoc, the band really opened up for the Friday night show.

READ ON for more remastered Live Phish samples and notes…

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