Trey Anastasio Band @ Riviera Theatre, February 27
On Sunday night, Trey Anastasio and his Trey Anastasio Band rolled through Chicago for a sold out show at the legendary Riviera Theatre. The site of TAB’s Chicago debut in 1999, the Riv was an ideal setting to catch the band’s 2011 return to form. The first set was mostly Trey solo acoustic, and began with the 3.0 staple Backwards Down the Number Line before settling into a great acoustic arrangement of Theme from the Bottom. While surprisingly heavy on new Phish material, the acoustic segment also featured great takes on classics Gumbo, Halley’s Comet, Dirt and The Wedge.
[All photos by Joel Berk]
Jennifer Hartswick and Natalie Cressman came out to sing backup on a breathtaking Let Me Lie, an interesting slow arrangement of Water in the Sky and Wading in the Velvet Sea before the rest of the band came out and launched into Heavy Things. The tune, also slightly rearranged, gave keyboard player Ray Paczkowski his first moment to shine of what would be many. Liquid Time and Hey Ya! closed the full-band acoustic portion of the show, but the group wasn’t done yet and launched into a ripping electric Push On ‘Til the Day to close the opening stanza.
The electric set began with the TAB-turned-Phish tune Gotta Jibboo, which got the crowd going right off the bat before launching into a horn-driven version of Ocelot. Ocelot, with its horn parts sounding reminiscent of Allen Toussaint’s arrangements on The Band’s The Last Waltz, worked way better for me than it ever has as a Phish song.
READ ON for more from Joel on TAB in Chicago…
Umphrey’s McGee will return to the Riviera Theater in their hometown of Chicago for a three-show New Year’s Eve run that’s being billed as “3 nights. 7 sets. 1 band.” The sextet last played a New Year’s show at the 2,300 seat venue on December 31, 2004 having moved up to the Aragon Ballroom a year later. UM performed at the Aragon each of the past five years with the exception of 2008 when they played at The Auditorium Theater.
Umphrey’s keyboardist Joel Cummins explains the choice of venues…
“We’ve played nearly every room in Chicago over the course of our career, to continue keeping things interesting, we’ve chosen one of our favorite venues in the city this year, the Riviera Theater, with a perfect combination of lots of open floor for dancing and seats in the balcony with great sight lines. We can’t wait to feel the energy in this legendary Chicago haunt explode!”
Tickets for the 29th, 30th and New Year’s Eve go on sale Saturday, September 11th at 10 AM CT. A pre-sale of three-show ticket packages begins tomorrow at Noon CT. The band has also added a slew of shows to its fall tour plans including a two-show run at the Canopy Club in Urbana, IL on Oct. 28 and 29 as well as a two-night stand at the Higher Ground in Burlington, VT on Nov. 3 and 4.
READ ON for a full list of Umphrey’s tour dates…
The schedule for Furthur’s Fall Tour has come out in drips and drabs. After announcing shows at the DCU Center in Worcester, MA on November 19 and Madison Square Garden
The first leg of Phish Summer Tour 2010 came to a close on Sunday night at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in Alpharetta, GA. We’ll have plenty of recaps of all sorts over the next week, but for now we wanted to present “just the facts.” We’ve put together a list of every setlist (via Phish.net) and have detailed our favorite audio sources, videos, reviews and photo galleries from each of the 18 shows Phish has performed thus far in 2010.
06/11/2010 Toyota Park Chicago, IL
Set 1: Down with Disease, Wolfman’s Brother, Possum, Boogie On Reggae Woman, Reba[1], Jesus Just Left Chicago, The Divided Sky, Golgi Apparatus > David Bowie
Set 2: Light -> Maze, Ghost -> Limb By Limb[2] > Prince Caspian > The Horse > Silent in the Morning, Run Like an Antelope[3], Show of Life[4]
Encore: Cavern > Julius
[1] No whistling.
[2] Ending vocal jam.
[3] DEG tease by Trey in intro. Fishman drum solo. “Jon Fishman” substituted for “Marco Esquandolas.” Lyrics changed to “Been you to have any stick.”
[4] Phish debut.
Notes: After Possum, Trey congratulated the hometown Chicago Blackhawks’ victory over his beloved Philadelphia Flyers in the Stanley Cup Finals that ended two days before this show. Reba was performed without the whistling ending. Limb by Limb included an ending vocal jam. Antelope contained a Dave’s Energy Guide tease by Trey in the intro section. Antelope subsequently contained a Fishman drum solo. “Jon Fishman” was substituted for “Marco Esquandolas” and Antelope’s lyrics were further changed with “Been you to have any stick.” This show featured the Phish debut of Show of Life. [Setlist Source]
READ ON for audio, videos & more from each tour stop…
For those Midwesterners looking for a hearty helping of brown this weekend, you’re in luck as Ween makes a rare trip to the heartland. The action starts on Thursday night
More than five months after ending 2009 on a high note in Miami, Phish returned to the stage tonight at Toyota Park in Chicago and seemed to pick up where
The latest entrant into the summer festival party comes in the form of the North Coast Music Festival, which will take place in Chicago’s Union Park from September 3rd to
In our never-ending quest to dig up some great bands that cost less than a corned beef sandwich at Katz’s Deli, we bring you another round of Blips. Blips highlights some great bands that are largely still in their larvae stage, but will soon morph into their beautiful butterfly. In this edition, we have some really cool new music, so take a sec, poke around the bands’ various websites, and see what you think of these four under the radar acts…
Truth & Salvage Co.
I seem to have an affinity towards bands coming out of the Laurel Canyon-area these days. In the late 1960s and early ’70s the small neighborhood nestled in the Hollywood Hills above Los Angeles was the epicenter for the folk and country rock movement, and now, over the last few years, the area’s rich musical history is influencing a new generation of bands. The latest to dive head first into the pool is the L.A.-based act Truth & Salvage Co., whose sound impressed Black Crowes lead singer Chris Robinson so much that he decided to sign the band to his Silver Arrow label and produce their debut.
Splitting the songwriting duties between four people, the band’s doesn’t fall too far from the Crowes tree, leaning more on the vintage weed and whiskey sound of outlaw country, than Southern-fried rock and blues. Drawing influences from the likes of Waylon Jennings, Little Feat, The Grateful Dead and CSN – they arrive at some amalgam that’s firmly rooted in the past, that at times is rowdy rock, and others mellow laments. Truth & Salvage Co. will release their self-titled
READ ON after the jump for Blips entries on three more acts – Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra, Mos Scocious and Newton Crosby…
Last fall, Levon Helm, the former drummer for The Band, was forced into vocal rest after doctors found a non-cancerous lesion on his vocal chords. While the docs kept us
The first annual UMBowl lived up to the hype this past Saturday night as Umphrey’s McGee gave the fans what they wanted over the course of four “quarters” at the intimate Lincoln Hall in Chicago. There were bust outs galore, debuts and reworked versions of old classics as well as plenty of mash-ups. Quarter one featured the band on acoustic performing songs that were voted on by attendees and webcast viewers including the first-ever live version of the Safety In Numbers cut The Weight Around, the first-ever acoustic take on Hurt Bird Bath and a completely out of left field cover of Interstate Love Song by the Stone Temple Pilots.
A Humorous Video Introduced Each Quarter
For the second quarter, the Chicago-based sextet improvised on themes provided by fans through text messages. Before the first round of improv keyboardist Joel Cummins asked fans to text in mashup ideas and the attendees and webcast viewers responded with a number of good ideas including Bathtub Gin & Juice, Ocean Billie Jean and Cemetery Walk This Way. The second category given by Cummins was “Numbers, Colors and Shapes” and the final one was “Make Us Laugh” which led to such texts as The Folk Prince of Bel-Air and Reggae Titties and Beer.
Quarter three was an all-request electric set that saw the band dust off Muff II: The Revenge for the first time since 2002 and Muffburger Sandwich for the first time since 2005. Other treats included a dub version of Wife Soup and a funk-laden Der Bluten Kat sandwich with a Girlfriend Is Better filling.
READ ON for more on UMBowl and an extremely detailed setlist…
