Telluride Bluegrass, Saturday

Friday was pretty intense in the sunlight. We cut out during Elvis Costello with the intent of coming back 'round for Railroad Earth. Costello must have made the mistake of his sound crew taking over the sound from the Telluride house crew (same mistake Ryan Adams made last year). His set was tinny with muddy bass. The house sound crew has the town park set DIALED. These national acts come in and screw it up every time. suckers. Anyway, after all day in the blazing sun, we retreated to our "Fortress of Solitude" (the van) where I promptly crashed and slept right through Railroad Earth. Oh well.

These are the band contest finalists. The band that won, The Hillbenders, are a high energy unit out of Springfield, MS (far Left). You'll hear about them again.

Here is Greensky Bluegrass kicking ass. Anders Beck on Dobro in the rain. The cover of Hendrix's "Wind Cries Mary" *KILLIED IT*. Just bought tix yesterday to see these guys again up at Yarmonygras in Del Rio in August.

This guy was still rockin to the David Byrne set two days later. This was his impersonation of Billy Idol covering "Girlfriend is Better".
Then the pulled a long segue into, " Wind Cries Mary". ~EPIC~ !!
Greensky Bluegrass is my new favorite up-and-coming bluegrass band. I can't wait to see them with Billy Nershi up at State Bridge!
Musical proto-genius Chris Thiele put together a single mic unit, The Punch Brothers, and ran down covers that aptly summarized the history of bluegrass music. It was FANTASTIC! The cover of Sammy Bush's "Spider John" was repeated by Sam later on, which was pretty cool.
Here's the boys from Yonder kicking ass. Nothing to say other than the 3 day extravaganza in Oregon is gonna be GREAT!!!! I can't wait. They ran down the version of "Girlfriend is Better" that they have been doing for years, causing flashbacks to the David Byrne set.

After the Yonder set, we headed out to chill for a few minutes, and watched the mists break over the mountain, and saw the rainbow. Rainbow's are, after all, just excess bliss.
Doesn't get much finer than this.
This photo acurately captures the energy of Sammy Bush's set. Pete Rowan is onstage here, throwing down. I've seen Sammy Bush play a bunch, and this was my favorite set that he has played. Killer!