Leftover Salmon, Woodshed Red & Bonfire Dub 3.11.18 (Day Three)

-

Stanley Hotel
Estes Park, CO

Words by Kristin Zachman (Direct Attention)
Photos by Blake Barit (Direct Attention)

As I sit down in Boulder and look back on this past weekend, I can’t help but smile at the thought of all of the spectacular music and beautiful faces that overran the historic Stanley Hotel. Leftover Salmon brought out an excellent group of people, all ripe for connection through music. On the third and final day of the festivities, fans rolled out of bed to the crystal clear skies and view of Estes Park’s ridgeline, the best view all weekend. After overcoming the awesomeness of the landscape, fans advanced into the McGregor Ballroom to slam bloody marys and listen to the prolific Don Byron sit in with Sockeye, the jazz offshoot of Leftover Salmon’s rhythm section (Alwyn Robinson, Greg Garrison, and Erik Deutsch). Byron showed off his arsenal of clarinets and took the lead on the downtempo brunch performance. Byron is relatively new in the Denver Jazz scene, but revered as a giant of the contemporary jazz world, blending his classical training with avant-garde innovations. It was a feast for everyone to watch him maneuver through the set.

Once brunch came to a close, it was a couple of hours rest before the Colorado debut of Leftover Salmon’s living room set. In the meantime, patrons were invited to peruse the art of Scramble Campbell and Frenchy, two live painters with distinct styles. Scramble could be seen throughout the weekend’s variety of sets capturing the color, feel and movement of the productions. The setup of Salmon’s Living Room set was intimate and acoustic, complete with a lava lamp, photos of Flora Stanley, and even a record player for kicks. The unplugged show wasn't lacking in energy, an advantage of their bluegrass stylings. The spirit was so high that the crowd and the band knocked a painting off one of their easels. Despite Salmon’s early end time, the night shuffled right along with “late” night sets by Bonfire Dub, who kicked off the performance with some originals before diving into the crowd-pleasing best of The Doors. Closing out the weekend was yet another local Colorado band, Woodshed Red. Known for their genre-melding covers and strong musicianship, along with stellar songwriting, Woodshed Red capped off the weekend with an impressive set, even inviting Tenth Mountain Division’s Winston Heuga up to sit in for a couple of songs.

Leftover Salmon’s fourth year at the Stanley Hotel was a total success. The setting alone ignited the spirit of Salmon’s music, much of which could be considered love songs to Colorado’s mountains. Fans enjoyed over ten sets of stellar musicianship, some healthy competition in the Big Wheel Race, and delicious food and remarkable events over the course of the three-day event. A healthy blend of work and play made the weekend anything but dull, and fans are undoubtedly anticipating the announcement of next year's Salmon at the Stanley bash. For those on the left coast, Salmon will be coming through Ashland, Eugene and Portland, Oregon with Keller Williams next week (March 21, 22 and 23rd) topping off the tour in Seattle on March 24th. In the meantime, aficionados can pre-order Leftover Salmon's new album Something Higher at leftoversalmon.com, and catch the album release party on May 4th at Etown Hall in Boulder, or party down on Cinco de Mayo at Colorado's prized venue, Red Rocks Amphitheater.

Blake's Photo Gallery

www.leftoversalmon.com

www.bonfirentertainment.com

www.woodshedred.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Livetronica Sampler 3.22.11

-
Image
Words by Greg Molitor ( ReMIND Photography ) Ozric Tentacles This British group has proven innovative throughout the years offering a space-rock meets psytrance sound that remains alive to this day. Though never having a major record label, Ozric Tentacles has produced 28 albums of diverse psychedelia throughout its career. The band met at the Stonehenge Free Festival in 1983 and truly fathered livetronica music with its use of sequencers and synthesizers. Simply put, there would be no livetronica without Ozric Tentacles. www.ozrics.com Octopus Nebula Colorado’s Octopus Nebula has certainly hit its stride as of late with its constant touring and increased festival interest. The group expands on the deep sounds of highly regarded acts such as STS9 and Shpongle but also carves a path of its own with its fresh takes on synthesizer tones and sampling in the live setting. Octopus Nebula Live at Cervantes' Masterpiece Ballroom on March 26, 2010. <--- Direct Archive Link www.octopus
Read more

Buckethead: Gimmick or Guitar God?

-
Image
Words & Photos By Nicholas Stock ( phatphlogblog.blogspot.com ) At what point does the gimmick overshadow the performance? The obvious answer is Buckethead. The man is an amazing guitarist but something is not right in this world. The idea a performer who dons a KFC chicken bucket on his head for a concert has always intrigued me, and some of his side projects such as Colonel Claypool’s Bernie Bucket of Brains have been huge successes. However his performance last weekend in Fort Collins simply left me perplexed. From his robotic dancing, to his nunchuck display, to the fact the he performed with an iPod rather than a band all added to my confusion. Going into the show I was ready to be blown away, despite rumblings of disgruntled fans from the previous night’s show at The Gothic. Buckethead had had some sound issues and some missed cues in Denver but I was still trying to be positive for the show in Fort Collins. It did go off without a hitch technically but that was the least
Read more

Billy Strings 4.18.19

-
Image
Salvage Station Asheville, NC Words by Jason Mebane Photos by J. Scott Shrader Photography When asked to write a review of last week's Billy Strings show at Asheville, North Carolina's Salvage Station I almost passed on it. I just wrote a review of his last Asheville show a few months ago and I thought it may be hard to come up with another set of words to describe to the readers exactly what a Billy Strings show is all about. I am sure there are a plethora of other reviews that other people have written focusing on how well he has mastered his instrument. I suppose I could recycle those thoughts and just sit here typing out a few adjectives describing each note Billy and his superb backing band played this past Thursday night, but that wouldn't be fun for me. Additionally I'd imagine a review like that wouldn't keep your attention either. Instead I have decided to focus on a few random parts of the Billy Strings show that seemed interesting to me. One: B
Read more

Shwarma, Cloud Catcher & Kaepora 6.21.24

-
Image
Cervantes Other Side Denver, CO Words & Photos by Pavel Gábor Kaplan Two weeks ago, Denver locals Shwarma graced the stage at Cervantes’ Other Side for the second time as headliners, with support from other Denver locals Cloud Catcher (stoner metal/power metal) and Kaepora (metal/funk/fusion). Coincidentally, both this year’s Summer Solstice and the Strawberry Full Moon transpired around Shwarma’s Album Release show, with the full moon falling on the night of the show. Certainly strong energy to power up the night of dancing and raging - from appropriately cosmic occurrences for a cosmically cool bill. It’s rare to have a full moon actually fall on the same day as a solstice. However, something not very rare is an unforgettable performance from Shwarma at Cervantes! I totally enjoyed photographing their Otherside shows last February when they opened for Lespecial to perform to a sold-out Ballroom-side, as well as their performance last Halloween at ‘Oogie Boogie’ alongside Dopapod,
Read more

Yarmony Music Festival 6.28 & 6.29.24

-
Image
Rancho Del Rio Bond, CO Words by J. Picard Photos by Scott Seifert Gratitude and appreciation have been the foundation of our time at Yarmony Music Festival (formerly, YarmonyGrass). Gratitude for the beauty of the space, Rancho Del Rio, and the mighty Colorado River that flows through it. Appreciation for the experiences, friendships and memories created. Over the span of the fourteen years that we've attended, we have seen firsthand a bonding of a core group of people who have become great friends, characters in each others' stories and in some cases, life partners. Following the incredible energy of the 2019 festival it was announced that Yarmony would be put to rest, to the dismay of many pirates. Though times got strange and folks were pushed apart, there was still a low, slow, pulse beating in the background. We did what we could to keep the spirit of the memory alive until one unsuspecting day, a long five years later, promoter Andrew McConathy announced that from its re
Read more