The grass is Bluer

Went to see some live music last night at Boulder's famous Fox theatre. The two bands playing were both amazing bluegrass outfits out of Minnesota. The support act was 'Pert' Near Sandstone' with 'Trampled by Turtles' headlining. They played fast and mean and punished their banjos. They sawed away at fiddles and double basses for the best part of two hours and by the end of the evening everyone including the audience was exhausted. I don't think I've ever encountered such infectious music. The bounding pace and driving choruses kept the whole audience mesmerised in one enormous jig for the entire night. I think part of what made the experience feel so musically rich was the absence of a drum kit. It meant you got to see the complexity of the layered effect that comes from multiple stringed instruments overlapping. It occurred to me that a drum beat can too often overwhelm the other instruments' contribution?

When you shut your eyes it was so easy to imagine yourself around a fire somewhere on the Appalachian trail. All that was missing were women in gingham dresses plaiting corn. What brought you crashing back to reality was the occasional political song hidden amongst the usual fist full of drinkin', gamblin' and 'me-and-my-gurl' type songs. There were one or two boos from the audience but on the whole most people cheered the anti-war songs. Personally I loved hearing a fantastically traditional style of music being reappropriated to tell contemporary stories. It didn't matter to me whether the sound was that of a country crooner or a punk barn-burner. It was a great night, I bought the cd, Yee-haw.


Unfortunately its a terrible video because everyone kept bouncing around me