Few bands would have the chutzpah to tackle the diversity of material that pulled off Friday night at the . Over the course of two schizophrenic sets, the band took its fans on a musical journey that seemed to touch on almost every genre of music, pulling everyone along on a joyous roller coaster of a ride.
You always know it’s going to be a special String Cheese show when “Little Hands” makes an appearance. And the fact that the song about the power of the desert and its ability to connect people to the past made an appearance so early in the show boded well for the rest of the night. Guitarist Bill Nershi and mandolin player Michael Kang traded vocals on the verses, harmonizing on the final one. On the spiraling finishing jam, Nerhsi wove delicate chords and riffs around Kyle Hollingsworth’s slow-building piano fills until Kang took the song into orbit with some fantastic fiddle.
Having drawn the fans in with a Cheese classic, the band divulged into funk and trance territory for much of the set. Hollingsworth’s synthesizer sounded like it was under water on the substantially reworked “Sirens.” The fan favorite “Jellyfish,” Nershi’s ode to a tequila-induced hangover road trip to Santa Fe, brought the funk full circle, leading into a frenetic finish while fans sang the final verse.
Drummer Michael Travis, whose singing has often been on falsetto-tributes to Michael Jackson songs, closed the first set on a rave-up of the classic Paul Simon tune “Late in the Evening,” singing it straight, although the line about the “J” got changed to a “marijuana cigarette,” much to the delight of the party-minded crowd.
Having given the fans the dance-rock they wanted on a Friday night, the band abruptly changed gears to start the second set, inviting opening act J.D. Crowe and the New South onstage for a mini acoustic bluegrass set in the best tradition of the Winter Carnival, which String Cheese originally started doing as a way to jam with some of their favorite musicians.
Even the drummers went acoustic, playing stripped down snare kits on the side of the stage on traditional bluegrass versions of several songs, including “How Mountain Girls Can Love” and “Shenandoah Breakdown,” bringing Cheese back to its ski town roots
Going back to the electrics, the band started slowly on a wandering jam, seeming to work out some technical difficulties on the fly, before launching into “Climb.” Nershi treated the fans to some sweet slide playing on an electric guitar on the fiery “Sing A New Song,” while Kang brought the music to its climactic best on “Give Me The Love,” an apt song for the feeling inside the building.
Late in the second set, Nershi then brought the theme of the road up again on the quirky “Rhythm of the Road,” with the jam touching on much of the musical territory they’d already covered.
For now, String Cheese seems content to ignore the road, playing a handful of shows each year. If the fierceness of Friday’s show is any measure, it probably won’t be long till full blown road tours are in their future.
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Cassandra Schoon is a Denver freelance writer and regular Reverb contributor.
John DiTirro is a Denver-based photographer and a Digital Ad Trafficker at The Denver Post. Check out .
