String Cheese Final California Show: Concert Review
String Cheese has taken their last bow in the Bay Area. There final concert was an all day event on July 22, 2007 beginning at 1:00pm. The two opening acts, Hot Buttered Rum and Railroad Earth both played one to two hour long shows, which was unheard of for openers. This, however, was not irregular considering that all the guys from Railroad Earth, Hot Buttered Rum, and String Cheese Incident were playing together all day. Nershi came out during both Hot Buttered Rum and Railroad Earth’s sets to jam a couple of their songs.
After about 3 hours of good knee-slappin’ bluegrass SCI finally hopped on stage to play a massive 3 ½ hour show. In the first set SCI played the audiences some classics- “Black Clouds”, “Jellyfish” and “Little Hands”. They did a cover of “I’ll Fly Away” with Hot Buttered Rum. HBR also joined them for the next tune “Walls of Time”. The first set was a solid 2 hours with well jammed out songs and quality musical chemistry.
Their second set included Todd Sheaffer on song “Long Way to Go” and Railroad Earth minus Sheaffer on “Sweet Melinda”. These two songs were by far the best in terms of musical communication. John Skehan, the mandolin player for Railroad Earth, gave some rippin’ solos and there was a nice little violin jam between Kang and Tim Carbone, the violinist for RRE. Although both sets were strong the encore is what took the show to new levels of Stringiness.
There first encore was one to remember with both Hot Buttered Rum and Railroad Earth joining them for the songs “Whiskey Before Breakfast” and “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”. With three entire bands on stage, SCI surprisingly held the songs together taking turns soloing and singing. SCI ended it by themselves with the tune “Smile”. These encores reflected SCI’s true musical nature which has always been firmly rooted in community playing. SCI ended their 20 year California concert circuit with an intense 7 hours of great music!
After about 3 hours of good knee-slappin’ bluegrass SCI finally hopped on stage to play a massive 3 ½ hour show. In the first set SCI played the audiences some classics- “Black Clouds”, “Jellyfish” and “Little Hands”. They did a cover of “I’ll Fly Away” with Hot Buttered Rum. HBR also joined them for the next tune “Walls of Time”. The first set was a solid 2 hours with well jammed out songs and quality musical chemistry.
Their second set included Todd Sheaffer on song “Long Way to Go” and Railroad Earth minus Sheaffer on “Sweet Melinda”. These two songs were by far the best in terms of musical communication. John Skehan, the mandolin player for Railroad Earth, gave some rippin’ solos and there was a nice little violin jam between Kang and Tim Carbone, the violinist for RRE. Although both sets were strong the encore is what took the show to new levels of Stringiness.
There first encore was one to remember with both Hot Buttered Rum and Railroad Earth joining them for the songs “Whiskey Before Breakfast” and “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”. With three entire bands on stage, SCI surprisingly held the songs together taking turns soloing and singing. SCI ended it by themselves with the tune “Smile”. These encores reflected SCI’s true musical nature which has always been firmly rooted in community playing. SCI ended their 20 year California concert circuit with an intense 7 hours of great music!
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