Yonder Mountain String Band knows how to treat its fans while leveraging their thirst for new material. Photos by L.
Nederland, Colo.’s certainly knows how to throw a party, and the band genuinely seems to appreciate their enthusiastic fans. After dancing to the band for over three hours on Friday night at , all fans leaving the venue got to take home a free copy of Yonder’s newest CD, “The Show.” Considering that the band played many of the songs on the disk during the show, it was also a shrewd move.
As this was the first show of the tour, the band’s first set was a little uneven. They found a groove early on “40 Miles from Denver,” a great song with confusing lyrics; after all, if you’re “40 miles from Denver, in that cool mountain air,” you’re on a Colorado trail, not an “Appalachian trail.”
Dave Johnston seemed to be fighting his banjo at times in the first set, especially on “Honestly,” which had a great bass solo from Ben Kaufmann. Jeff Austin shined on “Steep Grade, Sharp Curves,” which had great trade-off solos between Austin and guitarist Adam Aijala, and the set closing “Snow on the Pines,” where Austin ripped fiery mandolin leads over Johnston’s banjo line. The highlight of the first set was a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “New Speedway Boogie,” with Austin and Kaufmann harmonizing on the chorus.
With their new CD, Yonder seems to be moving away from the “speedgrass” that has defined them to this point and incorporating rock elements. “Rain Still Falls,” early in the second set, showcased very smooth vocal harmonies, while “Complicated” displayed a pure pop progression that seemed like a nod to the Beatles’ “Only a Northern Song,” which they have been known to cover. The gentle lullaby “Dreams,” played at the mid-point of the second set, showed great full-band harmonies on the chorus and an extended harmonica solo from Aijala, but seemed far closer to folk pop than bluegrass.
In addition to the different direction of some of the songs, Yonder is employing different tonal colorations in their sets. Austin used a distortion pedal on his mandolin on a feedback jam at the start of the first set, resolving into “East Nashville Easter,” and used a delay and wah pedal on a searing “On the Run,” which started a long three song jam to close the night.
Sandwiched into the closing jam was “Ten,” with a frenetic banjo solo from Johnson, and their take on Talking Heads’ “Girlfriend is Better,” with Austin using his mandolin to mimic the vocal line on a long intro jam. Before starting their two-song encore, the band announced they will be playing two shows at the Fillmore for New Year’s Eve, celebrating in their home neck of the woods. The encore included Austin’s over-the-top vocals on “Raleigh and Spencer.”
Xavier Rudd opened the show, finding a bouncy reggae groove on “Don’t Understand.” His sound engineer had fun panning between the speaker stacks during a long didgeridoo solo.
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Candace Horgan is a Denver freelance writer/photographer and regular contributor to Reverb. When not writing and shooting, she plays guitar and violin in Denver band the defCATS.
is a Boulder-based photographer and a regular contributor to Reverb.
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