The Infamous Stringdusters

During a brief respite from the rain, Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom opened its doors and, like a flood, the people poured in.  On Friday the 13th of September, The Infamous Stringdusters headlined a night of acoustic music that had rain-weary people smiling and twirling in the pot-smoke-clouded, packed rooms.

Over the course of the previous two days, much of the northern Front Range had flooded and images of apocalyptic, rain-fueled carnage in Boulder, Estes Park, Lyons and, especially The Planet Bluegrass Ranch streamed around Facebook.  The St. Vrain river raged over its banks and turned Planet Bluegrass into a lake.  For the bluegrass community, this was a travesty.  Lyons is arguably the heart of Bluegrass music in Colorado and the Planet Bluegrass Ranch – home of Rockygrass – is a lot of the reason why.  In the wake of this inundation, it was announced that the show on Friday night was to be a benefit for Planet Bluegrass.  Also, Town Mountain, who won the Rockygrass band competition in 2005, and who were scheduled to play at the Wildflower Pavillion at the Planet Bluegrass Ranch that very night, would now be playing at Cervantes’ Other Side.

And so they flooded into Cervantes for this sold-out show.  They poured in, and they swirled around, and they let the music flow over them like a river.
There’s a lot of talk in the bluegrass world about rivers and tributaries; about roots and trees and branches.  Bill Monroe is the giant tree trunk.  The Big Mon.  His music, along with Flatt & Scruggs, The Stanley Brothers, and many others in the 1930’s and 40’s defined a style that came to be known as Bluegrass.  The instrumentation, the high close harmonies, and songs about lonesomeness and hard times, combined with a very particular but ineffable sound, created Bluegrass and differentiated it from other genres of the time.  The extent to which current artists and bands in the genre today cleave to that trunk is the subject of much discussion among critics.  The farther a band wanders, the less right they have to call themselves a “Bluegrass” band, the argument goes.  That’s the critics.  The artists, for the most part, don’t care what the critics say, and play whatever the hell they want to play.  The bands that played at Crevantes’ on Friday are good examples of the spectrum of bands that fall under the bluegrass umbrella.

The two bands that played at The Other Side–the smaller venue attached to Cervantes–surely hew more closely to the roots.  Chris Thompson & Coral Creek is a mostly local band.  They expertly wound their way through a mostly traditional repertoire of fiddle tunes and old Bluegrass standards.  Their fiddle player, Christine King, is a wonder to watch.  Stomping a foot in time, grinning a big grin, she never missed a note.  They put on a great show.  Town Mountain, a “hard-driving Carolina String band,” did not disappoint, either.  Their repertoire is largely original, with a few interesting covers (Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire,” for example).  But through their music flows the same river that has fed Bluegrass since the beginning.

Meanwhile, out in the Ballroom, the Shockenaw Mountain Boys were setting the crowd to boiling.  Sightings of the band – composed largely of members of Railroad Earth – are pretty rare.  Fiddle player Tim Carbone calls the band’s appearances “mostly myth…like seeing a unicorn.”  But, like an arroyo after an unexpected desert rain, they filled the Ballroom with frenetic, passionate music for close to an hour and a half.  Though the songs themselves were pretty strictly Bluegrass, the presentation was improvisational.  These guys do not stick to a script.  That extemporaneous energy was infectious and surely opened the door for The Infamous Stringdusters.

The Infamous Stringdusters’ music flows, like a river in flood, right past the critics who say that “Bluegrass”  must strictly invoke The Big Mon.  Their music is fed by the tributaries of Jazz, Blues, Funk, Rock and Roll, and Jam Bands, among other things.  Grinning big toothy grins, these young men sail around on stage, happily churning a crowd into a near-frenzy.  Travis Book, bass player and Colorado native, seems, often, to spearhead the operation.  He dances around the stage with that big ole doghouse bass like it was Ginger Rogers to his Fred Astaire, plunking it down behind whichever of his band mates is playing a solo, fortifying the energy supply like a fusion reactor.  These guys are a high-energy band.  They play mostly originals, with an occasional cover thrown in.  That cover could be a fiddle tune, a traditional Bluegrass lament, or a U2 song.   It might be three minutes long or ten.  You never quite know what’s going to happen.  You never know how high the river will rise.

The river crested when the Shockenaw came back on stage and joined the Stringdusters for a few songs, culminating in the traditional “Angeline The Baker,” followed by a rollicking “Steam Powered Aeroplane” (John Hartford).  A water-weary crowd, now sweaty, danced and hollered for more.

Acoustic music is alive and well in Colorado; it’s watercourses full to overflowing with talent and people who appreciate it.  Lyons will rebuild.  Planet Bluegrass will rebuild.  Rockygrass 2014 will be better than ever.  And, if the Infamous Stringdusters, and all the other bands at Cervantes’ that night are any indication, Bluegrass, with all its rills, streams and rivers, will keep on rolling.

(c) The Daily Doobie – Read entire story here.