The ‘Roy Orbison & Buddy Holly: The Rock ‘N’ Roll Dream Tour’ will be coming to New York in November. This once in a lifetime tour began in September and has made several stops along the way throughout North America. Now fans from New York will have a turn to see this duo in concert. First up will be at The Egg in Albany on Nov. 15 before moving to Rochester’s Auditorium Theatre on Nov. 17.
Developed and produced by BASE Hologram, the audience will be treated to a high tech holographic performance with the accompaniment of a live band and back-up singers, all coming together to bring to life many of Orbison and Holly’s best hits. Eric Shaeffer (Million Dollar Quartet) will return as the director. In 2018 Shaeffer led the extremely successful ‘In Dreams: Roy Orbison in Concert’ tour across the world breaking many records.
“When you look at the architects of the Rock and Roll era, the names that come to mind are Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly,” said Brian Becker, Chairman and CEO of BASE Hologram, the leading content developer, producer and distributor of concerts, theatricals and spectacles that combine holographic cinema and mixed reality with live entertainment. “Both of these men weren’t just gifted musicians, but skillful innovators who helped influence others in game-changing ways.”
“These men weren’t just one thing – they were artists in every sense of the word,” said BASE Hologram CEO of Production Marty Tudor. “Like Roy, Buddy has a truly impressive songbook and in many cases, audiences may not have realized he was the one behind so many hits. Part of the beauty of these productions is we get to share the legacy of these performers and remind people of the full range of their talent.”
Despite several jam and recording sessions, these two rock and roll trailblazers have never toured together. Combined they have earned 16 platinum and 19 gold records, dozens of hits and 10 GRAMMY Awards combined. Being of a different era has not stopped these two from having three million Facebook followers and five million streams monthly on Spotify. To this day their musical capabilities captivate millions.
Information is available here for the tour that continues throughout the month of November.
North America Tour Dates
Nov.1 – Au-Rene at Broward Center – Fort Lauderdale, FL Nov.2 – Maxwell C. King Center for the Performing Arts – Melbourne, FL Nov.3 – Ruth Eckerd Hall – Clearwater, FL Nov.4 – Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall – Sarasota, FL Nov.6 – Florida Theatre – Jacksonville, FL Nov.8 – Atlanta Symphony Hall – Atlanta, GA Nov.9 – Memorial Auditorium – Raleigh, NC Nov.10 – Scottish Rite Auditorium – Collingswood, NJ Nov.12 – State Theatre – New Brunswick, NJ Nov.13 – AMP by Strathmore – North Bethesda, MD Nov.15 – The Egg – Albany, NY Nov.16 – Boch Center Shubert Theatre – Boston, MA Nov.17 – Auditorium Theatre – Rochester, NY Nov.19 – FirstOntario Concert Hall – Hamilton, ON Nov.20 – Danforth Music Hall – Toronto, ON
Celebrating their 45th anniversary in 2019, Sweet Honey In The Rock remains among the most vibrant, versatile and ever relevant musical collectives around today. Together, they perform an inspiring signature mix of soul, gospel, folk and world music, with elements of hip-hop and jazz.
While founding member Bernice Johnson Reagon has since retired, the torch continues to be carried by longtime members Carol Maillard, Louise Robinson, Nitanju Bolade Casel, Aisha Kahlil, and featured musician Romeir Mendez. This powerful and unique female a cappella vocal quartet is best known for their uplifting concerts.
Sweet Honey in the Rock will “Celebrate the Holydays” with a selection of traditional American holiday spirituals and hymns, as well as songs from other cultures.
Vince Herman and Drew Emmitt of Leftover Salmon will hit the road as an acoustic duo tour this winter, with dates stretching across the Midwest and East Coast.
The two long-time collaborators are hitting the road for a rare run of acoustic duo shows performed in intimate settings that will celebrate over thirty years of musical friendship. Each night will be a journey through the pair’s long history and touch on all realms of their vast musical catalog including everything from well known favorites to long-forgotten gems, and everything in between.
They first came together on a late October evening when Vince Herman wandered into the Walrus Saloon in Boulder, Colorado, after being enticed by a sign reading “Bluegrass Music Here Tonight,. He met Drew Emmitt, whose band was playing that night, and the pair have been reshaping the musical landscape ever since. First at house parties and in the campgrounds at festivals, then in Emmitt’s bluegrass outfit the Left Hand String Band, before forming the legendary roots band Leftover Salmon on New Year’s Eve thirty years ago.
Since then, these two have been blazing new musical paths with Leftover Salmon, taking the music at their core: rock ‘n’ roll, folk, bluegrass, Cajun, soul, zydeco, jazz and blues, and crafting it into something new that has spawned a legion of bands in their wake. With their unpredictable approach in a live setting, their willingness to take chances by fusing disparate musical styles together and their incorporation of non-traditional bluegrass covers into their repertoire, Leftover Salmon has pushed that progressive bluegrass sound they were originally influenced by to the next level. Instead they are firmly settled in the long lineage of bands that defy simple categorization, always setting their own musical agenda.
Vince Herman and Drew Emmitt Acoustic Duo Tour Dec. 19 – Barley’s – Knoxville, TN Dec. 20 – Asheville Music Hall – Asheville, NC Feb. 6 – City Winery – Atlanta, GA Feb. 7 – City Winery – Nashville, TN Feb. 8 – 185 King Street – Brevard, NC Feb. 9 – Richmond Music Hall – Richmond, VA Feb. 11 – City Winery – Washington, DC Feb. 12 – City Winery – Philadelphia, PA Feb. 13 – City Winery (2 shows) – New York, NY Feb. 14 – The Egg – Albany, NY Feb. 15 – Stage One – Fairfield, CT Feb. 16 – City Winery – Boston, MA Feb. 27 – Kenny’s Westside Pub – Peoria, IL Feb. 28 – Redstone Room – Davenport, IA Feb. 29 – City Winery (2 shows) – Chicago, IL
On Friday, November 1, Vernon Reid and his “Band of Gypsys Revisited Band” will perform at The Egg in Albany, as part of the American Roots & Branches concert series.
In the spirit of revisiting, refreshing and further exploring the soul, funk & roll of the Jimi Hendrix album Band of Gypsys Live at The Fillmore East, guitarist extraordinaire Vernon Reid of Living Colour, guitarist André ‘Dré Glo’ Lassalle, drummer James “Biscuit” Rouse, and bassist Jared Michael Nickerson will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the recording of this iconic and influential album.
Tickets available at The Egg Box Office at the Empire State Plaza, by telephone 518-473-1845 or online.
Karla Bonoff had a wry smile on her face at The Egg Friday, May 10 as she recalled an audience member at a previous show shouting play something cheerful!
“I’m trying,” muttered Bonoff ruefully, pausing a beat. “Actually, I told her she’s at the wrong show.”
Accompanied by the exceptionally tasteful guitarist, Nina Gerber, Bonoff alternated between acoustic guitar and grand piano, singing every number except for Gerber’s solo instrumental version of Clive Gregson’s “It’s All Just Talk.” The 67-year-old Bonoff is blessed with a powerful voice, yet she’s most comfortable expressing melancholy and yearning, as exemplified by “Please Be the One” and “Someone to Lay Down Beside Me.”
A succession of such downcast material doesn’t necessarily sound like a fun Friday night, but thankfully Bonoff has become something of a raconteur, displaying a sly sense of humor that appears only intermittently in her lyrics. She spoke fondly of her early years, recalling all the “icky boyfriends” who inspired “Trouble Again” and remembering open mike nights at the Troubadour where she first heard Jackson Browne unveil “Something Fine.”
Karla Bonoffand Gerber finished strong with a couple of disparate cover versions. An up-tempo rendition of “Personally” was set up nicely by Bonoff.
“I’m gonna play a tune I didn’t write — it was my only hit, technically. Number 11 on the Billboard charts! The way I found this song was my dear old friend Glenn Frey, a great collector of obscure R&B tunes, played me this record by Jackie Moore from the mid-seventies.”
(I said) “Wow, what a great tune — I can’t believe that hasn’t been a hit for anybody!”
Frey: “Yeah, you know, I was thinking I should send this to Bonnie Raitt.”
Cue much laughter from the audience. “Hi Glenn,” continued Bonoff.
“Here I am, right here. So, I didn’t let him send it to Bonnie. I recorded it and it was a hit. This record had horns on it and strings and the Eagles singing background vocals and all this stuff — a big record. So I didn’t really over the years play it very much. I didn’t feel like I could really reproduce that big record. But I don’t give a shit anymore!”
The subsequent version of “Personally” was a nice shot of adrenaline after so many ballads, but Bonoff slowed things down for the finale.
“I was taking guitar lessons (in the late sixties) from a great musician: Frank Hamilton who was in the Weavers on and off with Pete Seeger. He taught in a little guitar store in the heart of Hollywood called Barney Kessel’s Music World. He taught me a lot of arrangements they used to play in the Weavers. When I recorded it I was lucky enough to have James Taylor and J.D. Souther play on it, but they couldn’t quite make it here tonight.”
And in fact no one missed them, as Bonoff and Gerber meshed beautifully on a gorgeous rendition of the Irish folk ballad “The Water is Wide.” It was a fitting end to a lovely evening at the Egg.
Setlist: Home, Baja, Oklahoma, Trouble Again, Something Fine (Jackson Browne), Daddy’s Little Girl, Rose in the Garden, Restless Nights, Tell Me Why, It’s All Just Talk (Clive Gregson), Please Be the One, Falling Star, Carry Me Home, Lose Again, Someone to Lay Down Beside Me, Personally (Paul Kelly), The Water is Wide*
*(traditional, arranged by Frank Hamilton, Pete Seeger & Karla Bonoff)
“Birthdays are important, but I don’t want a big one like I had a few years ago. I just want the family, a few friends and neighbors.”
Pete Seeger would have been 100 years old on May 3, 2019. He was getting ready to celebrate his 94th birthday when we talked in April, 2013. It felt like I was talking to my favorite uncle. Pete had a way of making everyone he came in contact with feel that way whether it was Woody Guthrie, Woody’s son, Arlo, or the thousands of other folksingers he inspired.
“I’m actually going to be away on my birthday, because I have a granddaughter who’s going to a little school in Rhode Island that’s having what they call a grandparent’s day, and all the children who can are going to bring their grandparents to school. I’m gonna sing a few songs there. I’m mainly a song leader these days. I don’t have much voice left, but I’ve gotten better and better at getting a crowd to sing with me.”
Pete Seeger made a surprise appearance at Farm Aid 2013 at Saratoga Performing Arts Center
On May 23, The Egg in Albany will present a Pete Seeger Centennial Concert celebrating his 100th birthday. Arlo Guthrie and the 11 other artists performing illustrate how pervasive Seeger was as a moral compass in the history of American folk music and society as a whole. Arlo knew Pete from the day he was born. They performed together for the last time in Carnegie Hall, a month before Seeger died on January 27, 2014.
Arlo has just released Arlo & Pete’s More Together Again for digital download. Taped live in 1993 at Wolf Trap, it captures the mojo of Woody Guthrie’s son celebrating in song 60 years of the two musical families’ intertwining history. Best known for his anthem “Alice’s Resataurant,” With Seeger’s passing, Arlo is now the elder statesman and “keeper of the flame,” ignited by his father’s unofficial national anthem “This Land Is Your Land.”
“Most of the song had been written back in 1940 when he (Woody Guthrie) first came to New York,” Seeger told me in 2013. “He was actually hitchhiking, and Kate Smith singing “God Bless America” was on all the jukeboxes. His original song had all the same verses we know, but the last line was ‘God bless America for me.’ He crossed out that last line and scribbled in ‘This land is made for you and me.’ And that’s how he recorded it in 1948.”
Also included in this Centennial celebration is Guy Davis who accompanied Seeger on his last official tour in 2007. Guy is the son of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, stalwarts of The Harlem Renaissance. “Pete Seeger and folk music is where my folks and I intersected best,” says Davis. “Pete Seeger was a friend of both of theirs, and I got sent to a summer camp run by Pete Seeger’s brother, and the older I get, the more I’m in love with the songs I learned in the ’50s and ’60s.”
In 1949, Pete Seeger’s car was among hundreds attacked by KKK members after a concert by African American opera singer Paul Robeson. “Two stones actually went through the glass and landed on the floor of the car. I cemented them into the chimney of a fireplace I was building,” recalled Seeger
The horrible images of that attack galvanized public opinion against KKK hatred. Seeger saw the incident as “an inoculation” for America. “You know when you get a needle in your arm, your arm gets a case of smallpox. The disease precipitates the cure. The rest of your body gets alerted and does not get smallpox, and this is exactly what happened.
“Peekskill had a case of fascism there, but the rest of the country saw the pictures on TV and in local newspapers and mothers with babies in their arms and blood streaming down, and it was not a pretty picture. The rest of the country said, ‘We don’t like this.’”
“I would agree that it was an inoculation,” says Guy Davis today. “It becomes Americanized. Those signs they had, ‘Wake up, America. Peekskill did.’” Pete was first hand on the receiving end of that as was Paul Robeson, as were so many other activists. Pete took one of the stones that was thrown into his car. He had it put into the fireplace of his cabin and he said that if the final riot comes and there were stones being thrown and death being dispensed, then he was going to take that stone and use it.”
“I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes in my life,” Seeger told me in 2013, “but at least I’m still alive even though there was a thriving branch of the Ku Klux Klan only about three miles away from me. And I’ve often wondered why they didn’t come up and shoot me down or burn down my house or something, but I found out some members of the Ku Klux Klan had some family members who said, ‘You do what you want with Seeger and you’ll regret it. Everybody will be singing his Goddamn songs.’”
Toshi Reagon
Toshi Reagon is named after Pete Seeger’s wife and is the daughter of Bernice Johnson Reagon, civil rights activist and founder of the a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock. Toshi will perform her eclectic blend of rock honed on stages with Nona Hendryx, Elvis Costello, and Ani DiFranco. She considers one of her proudest moments to be when she played for her godfather Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden.
Another Centennial performer, David Gonzales, is a storyteller, musician, poet, actor, and writer and a one-of-a-kind artist. In 2009, David was commissioned to write a long form poem for the Hudson River Quadricentennial and, at the Egg, will recite excerpts from that work titled “Oh Hudson!” as they relate to Pete Seeger.
Seeger loved the Hudson River and his Sloop Clearwater became a symbol of our need to clean up our waters. He saw sailing as a metaphor for life. He remembered the time a friend took him out for his first midnight sail on an 11-foot Beetle Cat. “For the first time in my life I found out why people spend millions of dollars on private sailboats,” he said. “It’s not how fast you go, but the fact that you move at all. (Sailing) is a wonderful analogy for life. You use the force of the wind against you to move against it.”
“I was learning to sail on the Hudson, and I came along to certain places where there was a sewage outlet. I found myself sailing through lumps of this and that along with the toilet paper. I thought of the phrase of John Kenneth Galbraith, ‘Private affluence, pubic squalor.’ I had enough money to buy a sailboat, but I was sailing through shit.”
The one thing all the performers on this bill share with each other and Seeger in particular is an all-inclusive love for music as an “inoculation” against hatred and bigotry.
Dar Williams is a popular folksinger. The New York Times Book Review said of her book What I Found in a ThousandTowns that it “reads as if Pete Seeger and Jane Jacobs teamed up, more a report from the Green party than the green room.”
Tony Trischka is America’s consummate banjo artist and perhaps the most influential banjo player in the roots music world. He has written 15 instructional books as well as a series of DVDs. In 2009, he launched the Tony Trischka School of Banjo, an advanced, interactive, online instructional site that is the banjo home for students from around the world.
Amythyst Kiah is a southern songster who blends blues and old-time music. The only African American at the East Tennessee State University Bluegrass, Old Time and Country Music Studies Program during her enrollment, her repertoire includes the music of The Mississippi Sheiks, Son House, Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. The New York Times credited her guitar playing with guaranteeing her a place among blues masters complimented by “her deep-hued voice that can change on a dime from brushed steel to melted toffee.”
Cary Morin is a Crow tribal member who plays Americana acoustic guitar that incorporates blues, bluegrass, jazz, jam, reggae, and dance. His Cradle to The Grave album took the 2018 Independent Music Awards for Best Blues CD and earned him a 2018 Native Arts and Cultures Fellowship.
Dan Zanes & Claudia Eliaza are a couple whose Lead Belly Baby! Album is a children’s CD inspired by folksinger Lead Belly. Grammy winning Zanes began his career in the ’80s rock band the Del Fuegos. His wife Claudia Eliaz is a Haitian-American jazz vocalist music therapist.
Richie Stearns performs with his wife Rosie Newton. Richie brought the old-time clawhammer banjo style to a whole new audience with the bands Donna The Buffalo and The Horseflies, and has accompanied artists such as Natalie Merchant, Bela Fleck, David Byrne, Billy Bragg & Wilco, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Joan Baez. For over 20 years, Richie performed with or for Pete Seeger on numerous occasions, and was invited to score original music for an album that featured Pete telling his life story over a music background.
Taina Asili is a New York based Puerto Rican singer, songwriter, bandleader and activist.The Huffington Post named her group as #2 in a list of “12 Freedom Fighting Bands To Get You Through the Trump Years.” She is dedicated to using her art as a tool for personal and social transformation. The themes in Taína’s writing are based in her activism in political prisoner liberation, prisoner justice, climate justice, and food justice movements.
Bill and Livia Vanaver of The Vanavar Caravan. Bill has composed and produced music for films, dance and theatre productions, including The Clearwater with Pete Seeger. The Vanaver Caravan will perform an excerpt from their Pete Seeger inspired work “Turn, Turn, Turn.”
“I’m one of the musicians. And I’m only one of them,” Seeger told me. “There are now not hundreds but thousands of people making up songs and doing things in small ways here and small ways there and following the advice of the great French biologist Rene Dubois who said, ‘Think globally, act locally.’”
He recalled the tipping point in folk music to be 1960 when folksinger Guy Carawan sang “We Shall Overcome” and it became what in 2019 terms would be considered viral. “The hit song of the weekend was ‘We Shall Overcome’ sung with this rhythmic slow thing. It was a slow song, but it had a very definite rhythm, and it was the hit song of the weekend. Five weeks later Guy was in Raleigh, North Carolina, and somebody shouted out, ‘Guy, teach us ‘We Shall Overcome.’” And that’s where they added something.
“Your right hand reaches out and holds the left hand of the person to your left, and your left hand reaches out to your right. So, your arms cross in front of you. Your shoulders touch, and your bodies sway as you sing this song. Once again, an African tradition is added to this piece of music of bodily movement at the same time you’re singing. You’re not just singing. You’re moving your body.”
Despite the problems we have as a civilization, Seeger was optimistic about the future. “My mantra today is the agricultural revolution took thousands of years. The industrial revolution took hundreds of years, but the information revolution is only talking decades, and if we use the brain God gave us, who knows what miracles may happen in the next few years.”
And he saw the arts as society’s savior. “I think the arts will be among the most important things that save us. Words can mean different things to different people and numbers can, but (it’s all about) the arts, the visual arts, the dancing arts, the cooking arts, the human arts, the sports arts, Joe DiMaggio leaping for a fly ball had all the grace of a ballet dancer, and who knows.”
I asked Seeger what was the single most important thing he’d ever learned. “I guess realizing the human race is one more invasive species,” he said.
Seeger spent long, productive life trying to teach us not to be invasive.
What: Pete Seeger Centennial Concert
When: Thursday, May 23rd, 7:00 p.m.
Where: The Egg, Empire State Plaza, Albany
Tickets: The Egg Box Office at the Empire State Plaza, 581-473-1845, or online.
Brian Auger and the latest incarnation of Oblivion Express played just six songs in each of their hour-long sets on Sunday, May 5 at The Egg. The modest but appreciative audience was treated to plenty of marvelous solos from both 79-year-old English keyboardist, Auger, and the incredible Australian guitarist, Frank Gambale, a mere stripling at 60.
Earlier versions of Oblivion Express recorded six studio albums from 1971-1975, mining a progressive vein of soul-jazz that also incorporated traces of funk and rock. The current band somehow manages to make all these elements sound relevant and contemporary, even when they’re covering jazz numbers such as Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night in Tunisia,” Wes Montgomery’s “Bumpin’ on Sunset,” Eddie Harris’ “Freedom Jazz Dance” and Gene McDaniels’ “Compared to What.”
The current quintet was filled out by relative youngsters: singer/percussionist, Lilliana de los Reyes; bassist, Andreas Geck, and Karma Auger (yes, he’s Brian’s son) on drums. Anyone who thinks nepotism accounts for Karma’s presence should just listen to him – he’s an excellent drummer who doesn’t overplay, yet made the most of his brief solo-spot during the coda of “Whenever You’re Ready.”
Reyes has a lovely voice and she gained confidence as the evening progressed, stepping out from behind her percussion array, really emoting on a beguiling version of Donovan’s “Season of the Witch.” It was first cut by Auger with Julie Driscoll and the Trinity on their 1967 debut Open.
“We were recording on clay tablets at the time,” noted Auger. “This tune was a smash all across the Roman Empire.”
Reyes’ ebullient vocals and the energetic solos from Auger and Gambale were well-suited to the positive messages conveyed by songs such as “Happiness Is Just Around the Bend,” “Straight Ahead,” “Whenever You’re Ready” and “Sundown.” Auger is best-known for a robust Hammond B-3 organ sound, though he also deployed a Korg M3 synthesizer. Gambale was dazzling throughout, with such a clean tone and precise articulation, he demanded attention even when playing rhythm accompaniment behind Auger’s lead on “Compared to What.”
Brian Auger finished this performance by saying “drive carefully because you never know: I might be walking back to the hotel. Thanks again everybody we will see you in the future.” Though he turns eighty on July 18, he’s got a European tour booked for the fall, and shows few signs of slowing down. Mr. Auger, long may you run.
This May marks a centennial – 100 years since the birth of Pete Seeger. Although the world lost this preeminent folk singer and activist five years ago, his work lives on. The Egg will host a Pete Seeger Centennial concert on Thursday, May 23 at 7 p.m. Earlier in the month, the Egg will sponsor a “New York Living Legacy” series featuring multimedia performances celebrating the life and works of Seeger.
The Pete Seeger Centennial concert will be an evening of music, dance and poetry. Arlo Guthrie, one of Seeger’s closest friends, will be joined on stage by Amythyst Kiah, Cary Morin, Dan Zanes & Claudia Eliaza, Dar Williams, David Gonzalez, Guy Davis, Richie Stearns & Rosie Newton, Taina Asili, Tony Trischka, Toshi Reagon and Bill & Livia Vanaver. Tickets are on sale now through The Egg’s website, with net proceeds going to support Clearwater, Caffe Lena and WAMC Public Radio.
On May 3, 4, and 5, The Egg will present the program “Wasn’t That a Time.” The multimedia presentation features music writer Jesse Jarnow, author of the 2018 book Wasn’t That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the American Soul. This volume details the trials of the four singers, led by Pete Seeger. who rose to incredible popularity but whose socialist connections and anti-authoritarian ideologies got them professionally blacklisted at the height of their fame. Live music will be performed by banjoist Richie Stearns and folk fiddler Rosie Newton. Photos of Seeger will be incorporated into the program, as well as recorded music by Pete Seeger and the Weavers. These events are free and open to the public.
“Nothing but love songs, folks,” said Todd Scheaffer last night at Albany music theatre The Egg. Scheaffer and the rest of the formative jamgrass group Railroad Earth were having lots of fun at the capitol region venue, the first stop of their northeast run this weekend. So was Holly Bowling, the well-known pianist opening up for Earth, that also joined the band for most of their headlining performance last night. Bowling and Railroad kicked off the run magnificently, winding through song material ready-made into a bluegrass Valentine’s Day playlist, but also putting heart into all the musical treats of the evening.
Bowling opened up with her own welcomed performance before the two main sets, as is the plan for the rest of the northeast shows. Among the most well received of her Phish and Grateful Dead piano versions was a full-stretched “Divided Sky” on which she put a lot of personal touch. Another highlight was, no doubt, the set ending of “Dark Star” > “I Know You Rider,” where Bowling invited Railroad Earth bassist Andrew Altman and mandolinist John Skehan to play.
Droning cello from Altman, soft strumming from Skehan and piano sound effects from Bowling wound through a wonderful version of the early Dead song that shifted between delicate moments and chromatic, jazzy creativity. The trio easefully guided one another into “Rider.” Holly started to really hammer on the keys and Altman played a cool standup bass solo. From this beautiful opening segment, the stage was set for the magic to be made between Bowling and Railroad Earth.
After Bowling’s set, Railroad Earth descended upon The Egg with a great opening “Hunting Song,” giving this particularly psychedelic original a bit of musical power. When Railroad starts a show off with something extra heady like this, the chances for a strong show are in the cards. Bowling, who joined the band on stage from the beginning, got her first real sounds on “Old Man and The Land,” playing a ragtime-style solo that got a beaming smile from Todd Scheaffer.
Love songs did indeed imbue much of the band’s two sets through the evening, with “Happy Song,” “For Love,” and “Came Up Smiling” following the opener, and these cheerful songs started to get the audience, from the front row to the back of The Egg, out of their seats and dancing. “Raven’s Child” > “Only By The Light” was a powerful combo that saw expert playing from Skehan and Mike Robinson. Robinson was sitting in as special guest for this entire night on banjo, guitar and pedal steel; and he deftly held his own beside Railroad Earth, standing out in multiple moments. On “Dandelion Wine,” the romance number to end the first set, the younger musician picked an incredible guitar solo that elicited not only cheers from The Egg, but a fist pump from violinist Tim Carbone.
The second set kept the welcome love theme rolling, starting with the bittersweet “Been Down This Road.” “Lovin’ You” and “Long Walk Home,” alternatively, brightened the attitude on. “Old Dangerfield” came in the middle of these as a particularly hot version, with Carbone’s fiddle soloing propelling the tune between its breakdown tempo and an Railroad-style funk beat.
The last stretch of the night received the most adventurous musical treatment from Earth and Bowling. “Goat” was standard length, perhaps even shorter than many versions, but it was a rocking version at that. The thing to note about this one was Altman’s mighty standup bass work – huge and resonating. It sounded like a giant tap dancing on the roof of The Egg. Following on his and the drummer’s sturdy backbeat, the rest of the band ditched the song proper for a dynamic, colorful jam, and Bowling and Robinson were both well footed within the fray. “Jupiter and The 119” took this energy and ran away with it, for a very special version of this Railroad classic. The band showed their fearlessness in furrowing through an uptempo jam segue, and made a seamless and uplifting transition into “Butterfly and The Tree.” The playing from everybody on stage was a thing of progressive bluegrass beauty.
While the band soared from the one song to the next, there was one particular moment in which Bowling and Skehan’s soloing linked up, and the two complimented one another musically much in the way they had in the opening Dark Star segment, only this time at a breezy speed. If anything best presented how well Bowling fit into Earth’s melodically dramatic and unpredictable style, it was here.
Many fans are understandably buzzing about the night’s encore as much as anything else in the show. “Said What You Mean” is definitely on the rarer side of Railroad Earth originals, having been performed only twice over the last two years. A song that sounds like it could have been co-written between Sam Bush and The Band (but it’s all Scheaffer, a genius in his own right), this was maybe the best loved hit of the night.
