I know this is subjective and we all have different flavors/opinions, but what was your favorite set of the week?
Top 3 For Me
Was pleasantly surprised by Dispatch and Elephant Revival.
In no order:
Richard Thompson (masterful as always)
Jackson Browne
Hot Rize (new songs!!)
Infamous Stringdusters Nightgrass
Elephant Revival / Sarah Jarosz Nightgrass (the rendition of “Currach” where the audience went silent and listened was one of my personal fave moments of TBF40!)
Telluride House Band
Sam Bush Band (bonus points for the Johnny
Clegg cover)
Natalie MacMaster & Donnell Leahy
Richard Thompson
Sara and Sean Watkins with Sarah Jarosz and Alex Hargraves at Elks Park
Masters of Bluegrass after I skedaddled back to the condo so I could listen to it on the radio away from all the chatting by the SCI fans!
Hot Rize set and for adding Bryan Sutton to their band
Telluride House Band, especially closing with Tim O’Brien on John Hartford, Gentle on my Mind
-Greensky Bluegrass
-Lake Street Dive
-Infamous Stringdusters
-Masters of [the universe] Bluegrass
and I thought Steve Martin & Steep Canyon Rangers were a terrific replacement for M&S. {The fiddle player (Nicky Sanders) was amazing!}
Top 4 for me:
Greensky
SCI
Stringdusters
Salmon
Greensky & Stringdusters nightgrass shows were also amazing!
Lots of other great sets including Elephant Revival, Lake Street Dive, TBT, House Band (to name just a few).
Great music this year PB, thanks!
Favorite sets probably Greensky and Salmon.
Biggest surprises were Lake Street Dive and Trampled by Turtles. Didn’t expect much from either buy was blown away!
steve martin & edie brickell with steep canyon rangers
greensky bluegrass
leftover salmon
masters of bluegrass
edit: almost forgot yonder with sam bush, great stuff
Stringdusters were mindblowing at Nightgrass and great on the main stage as well. Easily the best touring band I saw at this year’s Fest
Saw three very different sets from Punch Brothers this weekend - all pulled something special and unexpected. Nightgrass was unbelievably fun. 11 people on stage? Ok!
Jackson Browne – had never seen him with a band. While he wasn’t shocking in any way, he was exactly what I wanted him to be – mellow, good songs, great voice, and very involved in his time there
Steve Martin – he’s a wild and crazy guy.
House Band – liked all of the sit ins. Felt like a gesture to the future of the festival to me.
So, I expected those folks to be great, but was surprised by:
Sunday morning – have been bored by Bela solo in the past, despite his talent. It was really a good combo with the Monks though.
Salmon – I always lump them with SCI (who I just don’t get – nothing against people who do), but their set was super fun
Steep Canyon – those boys can play
Sam Bush Band – I felt like the camp was turned down and I liked that.
That Johnny Clegg cover was a festival highlight for me, as well. They knocked it out if the park!
Steve Martin stole it.
Richard Thompson was incredible as always. Converted 4 friends who had never seen 'im.
Stringdusters got even better, which is hard to do!
Bela doing Abby Road was incredible, especially with babybrain, which essentially erases your mind for awhile!
Lake Street Dive killed it. Amazing.
Jackson’s own set was great, but he looked like a lost child whenever he was invited to jam with the masters. He said it best when he stated “I guess that’s the best band I’ll ever play with…” after trying (rather unsuccessfully) to hang with the House Band. Nuff said!
Tim Obrien is and was as always, a genius on stage.
This is what I wrote the other night:
Um, Yonder opened the first night at the convention center, pretty good show overall, no guests that was strange to me. Took a gondala up to the mountain village. I’ve never partied on a gondola before, that was neat.
Festival started on Thursday, Chris Thile solo set, Lake Street Dive, really enjoyed Emmylou Harris she played lots of gram parsons songs, Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers were a big highlight.
Friday was unreal. Sarah Jarosz, Lake Street Dive, Tim O’Brien, Trampled by Turtles, Peter Rowan, Punch Brothers, String Cheese, and then Masters of Bluegrass with Del McCoury, Bobby Osbounrne, JD Crowe, Bobby Hicks and Jerry McCoury. Honestly, of this perfect day, only SCI was a giant letdown. So freaking bad. More boring than watching grass grow. No idea why. Late night Stringdusters was pretty badass, Drew Emmitt played on a few songs.
Elk Park is the highlight of Telluride by the way, super intimate, super shady, saw Sarah Jarosz there, Tim O’Brien, the Punch Brothers, awesome.
Saturday was cool, Sara Watkins played with Jackson Browne, no Nickel Creek reunion that was a bummer. Yonder Mountain was super awesome because Sam Bush played most of the set, skipped Feist to watch the black cocks.
Sam Bush Band and Salmon were just fucking unreal. I had absolutely nothing left when they finished. Gave my elephant revival ticket away and hit my tent like a red headed stepchild.
Sunday was a rough morning, I missed Bela Fleck. However, Natalie McMaster was really cool, Hot Rize was life experience, I met the band afterwards and asked them to sign my Vonnegut Library hat, the banjo player is a humanist and a big fan so he was asking questions. Jackson Browne was alright, he’a aging a bit. I like his songs a lot though, there are several of his albums I enjoy.
Telluride House Band. I don’t really need to say anything about this. Sam Bush, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Bryan Sutton, Stuart Duncan with a fuck ton of guests. It was legendary.
So was getting my punch brothers late night ticket. 200 person venue, everyone was silent. First set was really well played, second set was a big guest fest done very well, three fiddle players, Tim O’Brien, Jarosz, Ed Helms from the office and the hangover played a few tunes.
Then the encore was just thile and jarosz played Radiohead’s The Tourist and then a bluegrass standard just unplugged in the audience. Perfect ending. Perfect way to kiss of my 20’s.
When I get home I’m going to start exercising and eating vegetables. It’s the right thing to do.
SCI
Peter Rowan
Sam Bush (also liked the Johnny Clegg cover, saw JC & Savuka open up for Robert Palmer in 1988 in Madison, WI)
Did anyone else catch the String Dusters Show at Elk Park on Sunday? It was originally billed as aBANDoned, with Dave of Greensky and Andy of The String Dusters. Andy mentioned something about Dave having trouble at DIA and couldn’t make it so he brought his infamous friends. It was everyone but Andy Hall and it was probably their best set all weekend.
Damn! I didn’t even hear about this. You can’t see it all I guess
Highlights for me were (in chronological order) Trampled nightgrass, Lake Street Dive, Richard Thompson, Feist, Sam Bush, Bela Fleck, and Punch Brothers nightgrass. If I had to narrow it down to three, I’d have to go with the two nightgrass and Richard Thompson (by the way, I could’ve sworn that was Mr. Thompson sitting up on the balcony during the first set of Trampled nightgrass).
It is always a highlight for me when people play songs by The Band. If there’s one positive thing about Levon Helm’s death, it is that we get to hear a lot more Band covers now. Sarah Jarosz played Up On Crippled Creek at nightgrass. Trampled did The Weight completely unplugged. Sam Bush did Rag Mama Rag. Finally, Punch Brothers did Up On Cripple Creek at nightgrass. Did I miss any?
Dusters also did “Up On Crippled Creek” at Nightgrass.
I’m going to leave out nightgrass shows (even though the Dusters nightgrass was by far the best show I saw all weekend) because I don’t want one band appearing twice in my top five.
Starting with the best
The Infamous Stringdusters - These guys are the best band in the world today. I wish they had been given a longer set so they could really jam and I was quite pleased when they played past their scheduled end time.
Steve Martin - After music, comedy is my biggest love, so to mix the two so flawlessly was areal treat. I was hoping he’d be booked for this year anyway, so I was not disappointed when he was announced. Great music and a great performance.
Leftover Salmon - The second best band in the world today with some excellent guests. The ending number with Tim was one of my favorite songs of the festival, and not just because he sang about Crunchy Frog!
Greenksy Bluegrass - While not as technically proficient as the Dusters, these boys are pushing the string band genre further than it has ever been pushed before and this was the best set of music I’ve ever seen them do.
Elephant Revival - Blew my mind. I had not seen them before, though I had heard them. I can’t wait to see them again. What a great way to start a festival.
Honorable Mentions - Sam Bush (best set I’ve seen him do), String Cheese (exactly the old school show I was looking for. However, it upset me that they ended early. Any of the other bands playing would have loved that extra 15 minutes, so it seemed really disrespectful to not use them), Masters of Bluegrass and Richard Thompson.
Greensky did Atlantic City at the Palm
I have to say, of all the festivals I’ve attended…the SCI crowd was the least respectful of other festivarians! So glad PB didn’t make a bigger deal out of them. Loved the SCI music though. Too bad about their followers.
-cheesy salmon nightgrass=facemelt
-the tim o’brien set…i love tim and his band was perfect
-the old joe>celebrate>rider>old joe during sam’s set. LOVE!
-lake st dive was a new, fun surprise
-MOB-i had listened to a few of their recordings of recent shows and wasn’t impressed but they did a great job and played ROCKY TOP! woo!