Anticipation builds as we wind through the mountains along highway 70 from Denver to Aspen on the way to see arguably the best live band on the circuit today: Umphrey's McGee. It is somewhat trademark of Umphrey's to not just play these remote venues, but to make everyone who came all the way out ...view article
My first exposure to the avant-garde jazz trio Medeski Martin and Wood (conveniently known as MMW) was at the State Palace Theater during a Jazz Fest weekend in 1999 New Orleans. MMW was still relatively new, but had the distinction of opening for Phish in 1995, which stamped them with the Phish ...view article
We rose some time after dawn in a small bed and breakfast lodge in Sacramento and I was still suffering a bit of barrel fever from all the whiskey I'd drowned myself in the night before. We had traveled East from San Francisco through the night to get a jump on the day. We'd be riding plum through ...view article
The Aragon Ballroom in Chicago was a storm of rock and roll energy on the second to last day of 2009 as hometown heroes Umphrey's McGee laid musical carnage on a few thousand lucky ears. This New Year's run marks the 12th anniversary of the momentous three days of fury that is to Umphrey's fans ...view article
There is little comparison to the excitement of the thumping house beats, the funky rumble of a low bass line shaking the building and the infectious sonic articulation of synthesizers that can be found at a rave. Imagine that being topped off with soaring guitar licks and the interplay of four ...view article
Get it while it’s hot people! Yep, Umphrey’s McGee is as fiery as ever, and was hot as blazes in the ragin’ cajun and cool as a cucumber House of Blues in New Orleans. After a wild day and a half of Bourbon Street seafood, cover band, stripper and overdosed slushy shenanigans (I’m talking ...view article
It is nearly 2 a.m. in a gleaming warehouse perched at the Northeast edge of the San Francisco Bay. On the dock, infernos rage from steel barrels, spewing molten fireflies by the dozens with the wind’s every frigid breath as the building’s vibrations and rumbles only hint at the possibilities ...view article
For no other reason than seeming regional proximity, San Diego is sometimes overshadowed by the Los Angeles/Orange County megalopolis; that seemingly unending, 150 mile slab of asphalt and concrete that stretches from the dusty San Fernando Valley in the north to quaint San Clemente to the south. ...view article