umphrey’s mcgee

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Bonnaroo 2012 Photos – Phish, D’Angelo, The Roots, Bon Iver, and more

I left the country after Bonnaroo, so I just got around to posting these. Enjoy!

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All Good Music Festival Webcast Schedule

IClips.net will be beaming live sets from the All Good Music Festival this weekend! Here’s the schedule for Friday with updates coming soon for the rest of the weekend!

UPDATE: There are some weather issues and other problems keeping iClips down at the moment. Apparently none of the music has been webcast yet, and we’re not sure what the schedule will be once the webcast gets underway. Check out the schedule for the rest of the weekend below and hope for the best!

Friday
7:15 – Umphrey’s McGee
8:45 – Cornmeal
9:30 – Tea Leaf Green*
10:30 – Dr. Didg*
11:00 – Old Crow Medicine Show*
12:15 – DSO*
2:45 – Lotus
Saturday
12:00 – The Macpodz
1:15 – Rebelution
2:15 – TBA
2:40 – Dr. Dog
3:40 – TBA
4:10 – Railroad Earth
5:15 – The Rex jam
5:45 – TBA
7:05 – Perpetual Groove
7:45 – Femi Kuti & the Positive Force*
8:50 – Everyone Orchestra*
9:15 – TBA
10:00 – Widespread Panic
1:15 – TBA
Sunday
11:00 – Moonshine Breakfast with Keller and the Keels
12:15 – TBA
2:15 – TBA
2:45 – Grace Potter & The Nocturnals
4:15 – TBA
5:15 – Keller Williams & The Added Bonus
* Denotes delayed broadcast
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All Bonnaroo, All The Time

In just a few hours we’ll be on the road to one of America’s greatest music festivals, and you can keep up with our exploits by following us on Twitter!

Over the next week, you can ride with us to Manchester, TN, and back via social media. We’ll be bringing the Twittersphere all kinds of observations from Bonnaroo – what the bands are playing, who’s sitting in with who, the atmosphere of the event, and lots more unique items. Full setlists from Umphrey’s McGee, Dave Matthews Band, and maybe more will be featured in real time.

Also, check Glide Magazine for my daily updates and photos from the festival, which will also be linked here.

BONNAROOOOOO!

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Ten For Tennessee in 2010: Our Ten Most Anticipated Bonnaroo Shows

I’m so done with webcasts. As fun as festivals are to watch from afar, Bonnaroo 2010 beckons and I can’t wait to get out among the speakers and freakers next weekend. Last year, I got a little misty recalling my top ten moments from the Bonnaroo festivals I’ve attended. In anticipation of the big event and more memorable moments, here are the ten happenings my crew and I are most excited about seeing at Bonnaroo 2010, in no particular order.

The Entrance Band – This LA band is the first act we’ll see this year, and therefore one of our most anticipated. We know little about them – we basically took their name as a sign that they should be first. Plus, they seem to be the wierdest of the first wave of bands that play, and that’s always a plus in our world.

Medeski Martin and Wood – It’s been almost three years since I’ve seen my beloved MMW. The promise of two sets in one day has our crew chomping at the bit to get to the Sonic Stage and The Other Tent on Sunday. An awful lot has changed in MMW land since we last saw them, but we’re diehards here and we won’t miss this one-two punch.

B.O.B. – Whether I’ll fend off sleep long enough to see his 3 AM set remains a mystery. Here’s hoping I can hang in there to see if Bobby Ray’s upbeat, hook-laden hip-hop stands up in the surreal wee-hours live setting.

Jay-Z – One of the touchstones of the Bonnaroo experience is checking out bands you’d probably never get a chance to see otherwise. As much as I love Jay-Z, I’m probably never going to make it to one of his arena shows, so this is my chance and I couldn’t be more hyped about this show.

Dave Matthews Band – This will likely be many of the campers’ first and last DMB show, and it’ll be our last for a good long while since the band is taking at least the whole of 2011 off. To “Say Goodbye” with a little DMB on a Sunday to close things out sounds great.

World Cup Soccer – England VS. USA – I can’t wait to see what the scene at the Lunar Stage is going to be like for this afternoon broadcast of one of the country’s most anticipated soccer clashes ever. I’m hoping for a wild mass of people dressed in red, white and blue cheering like hell for our boys.

Weezer – They’re another band that I’ve loved for years and have never managed to see live, though missing Jeff Beck, who plays in exactly the same time slot, is a tough call. Something tells me my mood is going to be tuned more for open-air Weezer than tented Jeff Beck on what will likely be a sultry Saturday evening.

The Flaming Lips featuring Stardeath and White Dwarfs – After their 2007 performance, Lips leader Wayne Coyne said they wouldn’t come back to Bonnaroo until they had something new for the event, and boy do they have it. The band’s planned late-night reading of Dark Side of the Moon is one of the most talked-about shows in the festival’s history, and the Which Stage is going to be simply mad for this one.

Umphrey’s McGee – Not even Damian Marley and Nas, performing opposite Umphrey’s and just one stage over, can tear us away from our boys. The time slot, which is basically the same one they had in 2008, is somewhat regrettable. I was hoping for some UM after dark, but alas, the afternoon will have to do. The bonus Sonic Stage set doesn’t hurt the situation.

Stevie Wonder – I’ve always been jealous of my mom for having seen Stevie Wonder in the early 1970’s. This show will dampen my envy a bit, though I’m not expecting anything at the level of what she must have seen. Still, it’s one of those shows that come around once in a lifetime, and seeing such a legend is a notch on the belt of any serious music fan.

Don’t forget to go ahead and follow us on Twitter so you can experience a nonstop barrage of setlists, info, and observations from all four days of Bonnaroo 2010! Also, check out these other useful links for the vicarious fest-goer:

NPR Streaming Bonnaroo Sets All Weekend!
YouTube.com/bonnaroo is also streaming
BonnarooNews Twitter
Inforoo Message Boards

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Summer Camp Webcast: Umphrey’s McGee, moe, and Mo’

IClips will be webcasting select performances from this weekend’s Summer Camp Festival in Chillicothe, IL. Click here for the page, and see the schedule below.

ALL TIMES CDT

FRIDAY

4:00 – Family Groove Company
5:15 – moe.
6:00 – STS9
7:15 – Cornmeal
8:00 – Umphrey’s McGee
9:15 – TBA
10:30 – Umphrey’s McGee
12:00 – Gov’t Mule

SATURDAY

1:00 – Backyard Tire Fire
2:15 – Rev. Peytons Big Damn Band
3:30 – Steel Pulse
5:00 – Slightly Stoopid
6:15 – ALO
7:00 – Umphrey’s McGee
8:15 – Keller Williams
9:00 – Umphrey’s McGee
10:15 – moe.

SUNDAY

2:00 – Umphrey’s McGee
3:15 – That 1 Guy
4:00 – The New Mastersounds
5:00 – Hot Buttered Rum
6:00 – Railroad Earth
7:15 – The Avett Brothers
8:30 – TBA
9:30 – moe.
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Bonnaroo Adds Comedy; More Festival Updates

Chris Rock was the first ever headlining comedian at Bonnaroo, performing on the What Stage to a crowd that had to be one of the largest in comedy history. This year, comedy fans will have trouble leaving the What Stage at all, as Conan O’Brien will be emceeing the festivities there on Friday and Saturday. O’Brien will also perform at the event’s comedy tent, and his performances there will certainly be the hardest shows of the weekend to gain entry to. For the emcee spots, we envision a wide variety of music and hilarity throughout the day, and we’d imagine there will be plenty of jokes at the expense of the eclectic Bonnaroo audience.

Other comedy acts at Bonnaroo are Doug Benson, Margaret Cho, Aziz Ansari, Jeffrey Ross, Greg Giraldo, Bo Burnham, and more.

The new kid on the block that everyone is watching – Maine’s Nateva Festival – continues to impress with its lineup selections. STS9, George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic, Umphrey’s McGee, Max Creek, John Brown’s Body, The Felice Brothers, Ryan Montbleau Band, Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, and Greensky Bluegrass were just added.

Some news on those coy ladies Lollapalooza and Mile High – Rumors abound that Phish will play Mile High this year as part of a western tour. Given their recent rounds of footsie with the town of Telluride, where the band is also likely to perform this summer, this seems logical.  Lollapalooza remains mostly a mystery, other than the near certainty that The Strokes will be there.

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Wounded Messenger’s Best of 2009 Week Begins!


With not only a year but an entire decade of music to celebrate, we’ll be bringing you our “Best of” 2009 lists all week long. We begin with our favorite 10 live shows of the year, followed later this week by our favorite albums of the year and our 101 favorite albums of the decade.

Nothing could be more regionally subjective and personally oriented than naming the ten best live concerts you saw in a given year. But for the sake of my own memory and comparison with other such lists, here are the best 10 shows I saw this year, with free download links and reviews when available.

Salute to DJ Premier & Pete Rock – 12/12/09, Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro, NC (review)
Phish – 12/5/09 John Paul Jones Arena, Charlottesville, VA (dl) (review)
Widespread Panic/Allman Brothers Band – 10/11/09  Raleigh, NC (review)
Nine Inch Nails – 6/13/09 Bonnaroo, Manchester, TN (dl) (review)
Wilco – 6/13/09, Bonnaroo, Manchester, TN (dl) (review)
Okkervil River – 6/14/09 Bonnaroo, Manchester, TN (review)
Eric Bachmann – 7/22/09 Duke Gardens, Durham, NC (review)
Umphrey’s McGee – 2/21/09 The Orange Peel, Asheville, NC (dl) (review)
Janiva Magness – 7/17/09 Blue Bayou Club, Hillsborough, NC (review)
Phish – 3/8/09 Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA (dl) (review)

We hope you’ll come back to check out our favorite albums of the decade and the year! Putting together these lists has been a labor of love, and we think they’re a lot of fun. We hope you do too!

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Halloween Concerts Provide Unusual Covers, Inspired Performances

Everyone knows by now that Phish presented The Rolling Stones‘ Exile on Main Street in its entirety for their “musical costume” on Halloween. Featuring the incredible Sharon Jones on vocals, along with the necessary horns, the performance is deserving of the immediate praise it received. But what about the rest of the holiday shenanigans across the nation?

Some instances of Halloween’s madness may not warrant a complete set list posting, but they are worth mentioning. At New Orleans’ Voodoo Music Fest, Drive-By Truckers took the stage with a version of KISS‘ “Strutter” in homage to one of the headlining bands of the festival. The Radiators brought their annual masquerade ball to Minneapolis, Minnesota’s Fine Line Music Cafe, where they sprinkled their show with their scariest songs and covers like The Who‘s “Magic Bus,” David Bowie‘s “Life on Mars,” Eddie Bo‘s “Pass Out the Hatchets,” and Roky Erickson‘s “I Walked With A Zombie.”

The Disco Biscuits were joined by Glitch Mob, Orchard Lounge, and Holy Fuck at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre for a night that was probably weird enough without any kind of high-minded musical costumes, but the Biscuits broke out a  first-time-played cover of Smashing Pumpkins‘ “I Am One” for good measure anyway. Meanwhile, at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium, The Avett Brothers dressed as The Three Amigos and treated the audience to a jaw-dropping show full of rare songs and the unique addition of drums.

One of the most publicized and anticipated Halloween concerts in recent memory unfurled with majestic grandeur in Philadelphia, as Pearl Jam captained a farewell party for one of the oldest arenas in the nation. The Spectrum will be demolished soon, but Pearl Jam did their best to beat the demolition crews to the punch, treating fans to more than 40 songs that lined themselves up in devastating fashion. The band kept the Halloween histrionics to minimum, preferring to cloak themselves in rare songs and celebratory camaraderie. The show featured the live debuts of Bugs (a date-appropriate oddity from the Vitalogy album), Sweet Lew (an outtake from the Binaural sessions that surfaced on the rarities compilation Lost Dogs), and Devo’s Whip It (complete with the band in Devo costumes). A large donation to one of the band’s charities resulted in the first performance of Out of My Mind in 15 years, and a large portion of the show featured the Philadelphia String Quartet. I could write volumes about the show, and I wasn’t even there, so if this paragraph has piqued your interest, I’d recommend checking out the set list and downloading the show. It should be available at Etree very soon.

Here’s a collection of set lists and notes from some of the more interesting performances last night, along with links to recordings where available.

All shows occurred 10/31/09.

Gov’t Mule at The Tower Theatre, Upper Darby, PA (download)

The band performed a wide array of Rolling Stones songs for the first set, and the show featured guest multi-instrumentalist Steve Elson.

Set 1 (with Jackie Greene): Under My Thumb*, Monkey Man*, Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)*$, Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’*$, Angie*, Ventilator Blues*$, Shattered*$#, Wild Horses, Slave*$, Gimmie Shelter*$, Play With Fire, Paint It Black, Bitch*$, Brown Sugar*$

Set 2: Steppin’ Lightly, Broke Down On The Brazos, Railroad Boy > Monday Mourning Meltdown > Forevermore, Frozen Fear > Brighter Days > Blind Man In The Dark$

Encore (with Jackie Greene): Goin’ Out West$(w/Peter Gunn Tease) > Bang A Gong$ > Goin’ Out West

* 1st Time Played
$ with Steve Elson
#with Matt on Lead Vocal, Danny on Bass & Jorgen on Drums

Widespread Panic at Austin Music Hall, Austin, TX (download)

Band Member Costumes: Sunny Ortiz – skeleton; Todd Nance – breast cancer awareness; JoJo Hermann – The Pope; John Bell – Vincent Van Gogh; Dave Schools and Jimmy Herring – cowboys/Brokeback Mountain

Set 1: Waitin’ for the Bus* > Chilly Water > Rock > Chilly Water, Trouble, Gimmie% > You Got Yours, Give, Mama Told Me (Not to Come), Red Beans (58 min)

Set 2: Come as You Are# > Bowlegged Woman, The Last Straw, Holden Oversoul > Jam > Vampire Blues, Imitation Leather Shoes > Drums > Bust It Big > Pigeons, Lake Of Fire@ > Henry Parsons Died (92 min)

Encore: This Masquerade^, Postcard, Flat Foot Flewzy

*ZZ Top, first time played
%with Norwegian Wood tease
#Nirvana, first time played
@Meat Puppets, first time played
^Leon Russell, first time played

Umphrey’s McGee at Los Tortugas Dance of the Dead, Groveland (Yosemite), CA (photos)

Band Member Costumes: The band wore mashed-up costumes to complement their Monster Mash-Up theme:
Jake Cinninger (guitar) – George Harrison Ford
Ryan Stasik (bass) – Bret Michaels Jackson
Brendan Bayliss (guitar) – Captain Kirk Hammett
Joel Cummins (keys) – Dirty Harry Caray
Kris Myers (drums) – Rod Stewart Copeland
Andy Farag (perc) – Wizard of Ozzy Guillen

Set 1: JaJunk% > 2×2 > Q*Bert > 2×2, Cemetery Walk, Padgett’s Profile, All In Time%%, Cemetery Walk II, Sweet Sunglasses*

Set 2: Jazz Odyssey > Nothing Too Fancy > Hangover > Night Gambler** > Nothing Too Fancy, FF > Professor Wormbog^, JaJunk, Mulche’s Odyssey, Land of Wappy$

Encore: 40’s Theme, Nemo’s Fat Bottomed Good Times$$

% with Smooth Criminal/Heartbreaker jam
%% with Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ jam
* mash-up of Sweet Dreams (Eurythmics), Sunglasses at Night (Corey Hart), and Electric Feel (MGMT)
** mash-up of The Gambler (Kenny Rogers), Night Fever (The Bee Gees), and Rapper’s Delight (The Sugarhill Gang)
^ with Bill Kreutzman on drums
$ mash-up of Wappy Sprayberry, Land of Confusion (Genesis), and Seek & Destroy (Metallica)
$$ mash-up of Nemo, Fat Bottomed Girls (Queen), and Good Times Bad Times (Led Zeppelin)

moe. at Washington Ave. Armory, Albany, NY

Many of the show’s songs were selected via fan voting.

Band Member Costumes: The band wore the uniforms of the Cobra Kai dojo from the film The Karate Kid.

Set 1: The Ghost Of Ralph’s Mom, Godzilla, Farmer Ben*#, You Can Call Me Al**, We Got The Party^, George, Echoes

Set 2: Stash, meat > Eyes Of The World > Echoes, Rebubula > Dark Star > Rebubula

Encore: Fuck Her Gently^^, Don’t Fuck With Flo, Crab Eyes

# Last Played 3/02/05
* with Werewolves Of London, The Munsters (theme), The Adams Family (theme), and Powerhouse teases
** Jim on piccolo bass & Al on trumpet
^ Jim on acoustic
^^ only Al (acoustic) and Chuck

Perpetual Groove at The National, Richmond, VA

Band Member Costumes: The band dressed as various characters from John Hughes films, and performed musical selections from the films throughout the night.

Set 1: Space Paranoids, TSMM > Harmonium > TSMM, At the Screen, Cairo, Oh Yeah, Mayday

Set 2: Teakwood Betz (Fakeout) > Weird Science > Teakwood Betz, Three Weeks, Speed Queen > Blitzkreig Bop > Speed Queen, Don’t You Forget About Me

Encore: Lost Connection, Twist and Shout

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Album Review: OHMphrey – OHMphrey

OHMphrey is a quintet featuring half of Chicago rockers Umphrey’s McGee – keyboardist Joel Cummins, guitarist Jake Cinninger, and drummer Kris Meyers – along with Chris Poland (Megadeth, OHM) and Robertini Pagliari (OHM). Their eponymous debut album, out on Magna Carta, is a fiery, expansive instrumental opus that will please a wide range of listeners.

OHMphreyGearheads and musicians will love the album for its technical complexity and performance perfection, jam-seekers will dig the many open-ended compositions, and fusion devotees will find plenty of styles and solos to discuss. Full of impressive individual performances and amazing group interplay, OHMphrey brings the band’s many tastes to the table, including hard electric fusion, menacing metal, and soaring improvisation.

Opening track “Someone Said You Were Dead” combines a jittery guitar figure with synthesized waves of guitar, bruising drums, and frantic bass work. It’s all contained within a structure that is alternately uplifting and menacing, as progressive note frenzies surround a hopeful hook. “The Girl From Chi-Town” is nearly the opposite, as the band lounges on a bluesy, stoic groove full of evocative melodies and wistful solos.

It’s impossible to single out the contributions of each band member on a per-song basis, as all five of them add invaluable ideas. Listeners who are familiar with both of the contributing bands will instantly recognize the personalities and signature sounds of the players. While the band does create some wholly original music, the album still tugs knowingly at the ears of those who know the musicians’ prior work.

“Denny’s By the Jail,” in particular, has the chugging feel of a typical Umphrey’s jam. It will be a familiar sound to their fans, who are used to following the band back and forth across the line between pure improvisation and premeditated chaos. The alternately fierce and atmospheric guitars scurry along a schizophrenic beat that is unmistakably Myers, and I’d bet most Umphrey’s fans could name that drummer in less than 30 seconds.

Cinninger revels in the chance to indulge his prog-metal leanings, which have markedly changed the Umphrey’s sound but are finally allowed to run completely wild here. Cummins sounds as if he’s riding the same creative wave that inspired his solo album, Common Sense, and his highly mechanized synth work and poignant piano are right at home among the album’s dynamic shifts.

Pagliari unleashes a jazzy rollercoaster of notes during “Ice Cream,” then propels the band through a brief, seemingly spontaneous bit of fusion that fades out far too quickly. The subsequent “Lake Shore Drive” fails to achieve liftoff and isn’t nearly as appealing, but it stretches out for over 8 minutes. “Ice Cream” melted in three and a half. Anyone who has spent time in Chicago knows that Lake Shore Drive isn’t as good as ice cream.

“Not Afraid of the Dark,” like “Ice Cream,” seems to be just one segment of a much larger creation. The band is in full flight when the track fades in, and Poland joins Cummins and Cinninger in dirtying up a pulsating bass and drum groove. The result sounds like Headhunters, Mahavishnu, Rush, and King Crimson rolled into one foreboding fusion-rock whole.

“Shrooms ‘n Cheese” is a loose piece of intimate improvisation that brings the listener 15 minutes in the mind of the musicians. Pagliari and Cinninger zing ideas off one another while Meyers does a routinely admirable job of keeping time through the constant changes, Cummins lends melodic depth in all the right places, and Poland contributes another piercing, tuneful solo. At the song’s halfway point, they’ve already explored a half dozen loosely-bound interpretations of funk, jazz, and rock, collectively unearthing an entirely new sound that they steer to a cinematic climax.

“What’s the Word, Thunderbird” brings the album to a close with indescribable barroom fusion. Highlighted by Cummins’ guilty-pleasure synths and an unrestrained jamming style, the track is even less structured than “Shrooms ‘n Cheese.” Together, the two tracks stand in stark contrast to the tightly wound tunes that dominate the album’s first half.

OHMphrey gives it their all on this release, alternately putting each other through the musical wringer and letting each other stretch out. The album is a revealing glimpse into the multiple personalities of each of these insanely talented musicians.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10

Links:
OHMphrey MySpace Page
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