While I typically experience a show from the photo pit, I was treated this time with the opportunity to share a few words to accompany my photos of Billy Strings at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
Fresh off the birth of his firstborn child, Billy and his band offered up the sold-out crowd a joyful setlist peppered with old favorites, classic tributes, and selections from his newest record, Highway Prayers, the first bluegrass album in decades to reach #1 on the Billboard charts. (The last was the soundtrack to "Oh Brother, Where Are Thou," starring Cincinnati's own George Clooney).
Many attendees were recovering from 2 nights at Pine Knob in his home state of Michigan, a fitting place to place his first shows as a father. I feel it's important to mention, for the sake of context, that the 4th annual Renewal Festival (named for his Grammy-winning album) went on without him during the last weekend of September, as his wife went into labor. He made the incredibly manly choice to board Ringo Starr's private plane and depart to be by her side. Afterward, he offered full refunds to all festival goers, a move sure to secure his legacy as a lovable man of the people.
The visuals following the set break echoed the depth of the musical catalog, playing with perspective to extend the stage far beyond its players. If you ever played Contra on NES, you'd be reminded of the iconic base levels.
The band recognizes the value of carrying a vibe deep throughout a set. It showcases their ability to dive into a well of psychedelia as they moved effortlessly from one song to the next, showcasing their heavily road-polished ability to improvise fresh paths between composed material. After giving the crowd a well-deserved breather following "Hollow Heart," bass player Royal Masat took to the synthesizer for the opening bars of "Stratosphere Blues/I Believe In You," the ethereal 2nd single off Highway Prayers, and the first time played in concert.
The band then whipped the crowd into a frenzy with a grassy arrangement of Pink Floyd's "Brain Damage," complete with 3-part vocal harmonies and trippy visuals showing the band dissipating a la Infinity War.
The next number, one of my personal favorites: Earl Scruggs' bluegrass staple "Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow," a song meant to be played only by the fleetest of fingers. Perfect tune for Friday night of a 2-night stand! They paused to congratulate a newly engaged couple. Coincidentally, my wife and I also agreed to tie the knot at a Billy show in Asheville on Valentine's Day in 2020.
Next came another cover, this one "With a Vamp in the Middle" by John Hartford, offering them plenty of room to ramp up to 2021's dizzying anti-war anthem "Wargasm," a distortion-heavy track that betrays his metal roots and elicited an extended standing ovation.
Switching gears once again, Jimmie Skinner's 1948 prison ballad "Doin' My Time," later popularized by both Flatt & Scruggs and Johnny Cash.
The raucous crowd didn't offer the band much of a break before returning to the stage with sage advice like "keep your stick on the ice" and "don't let your meatloaf" before closing the evening with The Stanley Brothers' "Going To The Races" and giving mandolin player Jarrod Walker a chance to shine on a song regularly played and familiarized by by Jerry Garcia and David Grisman's Old & In The Way.
Please enjoy my images from night 1, and be sure to stop back by for coverage of Night 2 from Gainbridge Fieldhouse!
