The past friday night was I was privileged to see on fantastic musical performance. The playing was fast and furious. The sound was dead-on perfect. The energy, both from the band and the audience, was pure electricity. Plain and simple, it was a great night for live music and a good showing by the mid-west’s own Umphrey’s McGee.
Just about everything seemed to go right during the performance; right up to the second song when they overloaded the amps during “Nemo”. Still, the band never dropped a note and the crew working that night at Irving Plaza had things back to normal too sweet. Some of the highlights for me were “In the Kitchen”, “JaJunk”, “Wife Soup” and two ridiculously good covers of “Baba O’Riley” and “Hot for Teacher”.
These boys got some chops.
This was also the second show I attended where I was able to purchase the performance just minutes after it had ended — a 3-disc, two plus hour show. The wave of the future, my friends. Too bad I didn’t have a pen with me, because I probably could have gotten it signed by guitarist Brendan Bayliss. As I was waiting on line at the coat check the band was being ushered out past us. I did at least get to compliment him on a good set and shake the man’s hand. Good enough in my book.
Photos and video clips: Umphrey’s McGee at Irving Plaza
Setlist from the show (via the UM website):
Set One: Prowler > Nemo, Dump City, In the Kitchen, The Crooked One, Women Wine and Song > Blue Echo > “Jimmy Stewart” > Baba O’Riley^, Wife Soup
Set Two: Bridgeless, Party Peeps^^, Plunger, Thin Air, “Jimmy Stwart”* > 40′s Theme$, Push the Pig > JaJunk$$
Encore: The Bottom Half, Hot For Teacher
Notes:
procedes from this concert benefited VH1 Save the Music
^ with Chad from Emtybag Productions on bass, replacing Ryan; introduced as Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue
^^ with Jeremy Piven (actor) on percussion with Andy
* similar to Utopian Fir “Jimmy Stewart” from 10.22.04
$ with Keller Williams on mouth trumpet
$$ with Ilya Stemkovsky (OM Trio) on percussion with Andy
Tags: New York City, Personal