Boulder’s String Cheese Incident kicked off its BIG (Beyond Internal Gravity) Summer Classic touring festival Saturday night at Red Rocks, bringing together a diverse lineup of musicians to a nearly sold-out audience.
In addition to excellent music, the tour aims to promote environmental responsibility. An Eco-Village showcases biodiesel fuel and hybrid cars, while the trucks transporting the gear from city to city are powered entirely by soy-based diesel fuel. A food drive for the Conscious Alliance will be held at each venue.
Before String Cheese’s set, members of a Lakota reservation in South Dakota presented the band with a star quilt, thanking it for its assistance with the food drive over the years. The quilt adorned Kyle Hollings worth’s keyboard stand for the rest of the evening.
However, the centerpiece of the tour is the music. Fans of String Cheese’s trippy blend of bluegrass, jazz, funk and rock were treated to a tight set with lots of musical exploration.
Against a backdrop of large paintings of breaking waves, the band came out strong, opening with “Little Hands.” As guitarist Bill Nershi and mandolin player Michael Kang sang, “800 years ago, they painted these little hands,” fireworks exploded behind the stage, kicking off a jam that saw Hollingsworth and Kang trade licks before spinning together at the end.
The fireworks continued during a long “Rollover,” propelled by Kang’s electric mandolin.
Saturday’s performers also included New Monsoon and Umphrey’s McGee, which closed its set with a fiery cover of Led Zeppelin’s “The Song Remains the Same.”
