Umphrey's McGee

[progdirjim(Admin)]

Saw Umphrey's McGee tonight at the local House Of Blues - I like being able to walk there, which is easy in my current living situation.

Very talented band. Six musicians - drums, percussion, bass, 2 guitars and keys. Primarily a jam band, kind of sound like Phish but better and higher music/vox ratio (my opinion)

Interesting thing to me: all six are excellent musicians. But I noticed pretty quickly, and confirmed throughout the show that the two primary guys are guitarist 1 and drummer. I should say that both guitarists are quite talented; the one I'm calling guitarist 2 just didn't have quite the range and leadership the other did. I found on the band's web site that the drummer joined the band in 2003; but he was impressive. Perhaps the most impressive drummer I've ever seen who did 90% of his work on bass drum, snare, hi-hat and cymbals. He just added so much definition, punch, dynamics, and rhythmic feel to the music. Guitarist 1 seemed to cue the leads and changes while they were jamming, and just consisted of so much of the band's sound. Guitarist 2 - I've seen good bands with one guitarist worse than him. Lots of arpeggios and leads, and primary vocalist. Bass player laid down a fluid sounding groove (at first listen I thought he played fretless, but he didn't- but it was a 5 string bass). Keyboard player had nice fills and leads, but almost seemed a session player (though a great one). Percussionist was good, and an excellent conga player for a white boy (being a bad conga player, I think I know about which I speak), and he added a fair amount to the music, but wasn't as critical to the sound as the drummer. None of this shoud be interpreted as slams on bass, keys, guitar 2 or percussionist - as I said earlier, all are quite talented.

Strange crowd- lots of hippies searching for the next Grateful Dead. Please stop doing acid and that stupid hand dancing crap.

Sound was excellent, and they played a 90 minute set, took a 15 minute break, and started another set. I left at about the halfway point of the second set (assuming it would be 90 minutes) due to work tomorrow, and since I had a few beers, wanted to get them out of my system before I went to bed.

I bought their latest album, and based on listening to it now, will be adding it to the moon soon...

cheers