Over the past three years, Bear Creek has increasingly become the staple festival of the southeast. With festivals such as Langerado taking steps towards extinction, Bear Creek has flourished, and has put together lineups that seem to outdo years past, which seems hard to believe. The heavy hitting ...view article

“Happy birthday America!” exclaims Brendan Bayliss, lead singer and co-lead guitarist of all-American proggy tonk boys Umphrey’s McGee after a captivating, full band a cappella rendition of ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ at the Denver (area) Gothic Theatre on Independence Day 2010.  Yes, the ...view article

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

Located on the banks of the Des Moines River, the Simon Estes Amphitheater was the site of yet another Umphrey’s McGee ‘musical-Mona Lisa’. A truly beautiful setting for a night that would include some of summer’s most electric moments. The ever-present feeling of the impending Fourth of ...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

This year, Merlefest celebrated its 22nd year of music and art in the unbelievable heat of Wilkesboro, NC.  The festival boasted accommodations for young and old alike, mixing a variety of bluegrass knowns and unknowns with local art, food, and family activities. Smoking was not permitted during ...view article

If the trip and surrounding circumstances of seeing Umphrey's McGee Wednesday in Seattle were hectic and confused, the exact opposite could be said about the day of the show in the University of Oregon college town of Eugene. Very few obvious Umphreaks were seen around the sleepy town and even until ...view article

January 15th held a mellow afternoon in San Diego with just a small layer of hazy clouds in the sky, almost 70 degrees and no sign of rain.  However, in the San Diego House of Blues, weather fronts collided unleashing a powerful musical storm called Umphrey's McGee.17356

This six-headed, twelve-armed ...view article

As the sun dropped behind the thick timberland's of the northwestern mitten, Umphrey’s McGee came out as cool as the air.  Kris Myers and Joel Cummins were facing a double-header of music that evening, as they had just wrapped up another amazing set with their other project, Digital Tape Machine, ...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