Judging by the deliriously excited sold out crowd at the Gothic Theatre on Saturday night, is no longer one of the best-kept secrets in jam music and newgrass. For the better part of three hours, the quintet from Michigan delved into a variety of extended originals, bluegrass versions of classic rock songs and classic bluegrass tunes, delivering them in their own unique style.
Given the way that bluegrass/newgrass has been embraced and grown in Colorado, with such acts as Hot Rize, Leftover Salmon, String Cheese Incident and Yonder Mountain String Band having been birthed here, Greensky’s Mile High popularity would seem to be a given, and the band certainly likes playing here. In fact, guitarist Dave Bruzza recently moved to Denver. Saturday’s show closed a 10-week tour in which Greensky played 47 shows; just four weeks ago, Greensky played two sold-out nights at the Fox in Boulder, so Saturday’s Gothic show, coming on the heels of the Fox run and also Friday’s sold-out Gothic show, was the fourth show in a month in which Colorado hippiegrass fans got to enjoy Greensky’s raucous performances.
Saturday kicked off with a nod to tradition in the form of “Pig in a Pen,” which was one of the shortest tunes of the night, finishing in less than three minutes. After settling down, the band started to stretch out on “Don’t Lie,” with Bruzza, mandolin player Paul Hoffman, banjo player Michael Bont and Dobro player Anders Beck all taking long solos, frequently twining their playing around each other to create an organic sound. At times, Bont and Beck were soloing in and around each other while Hoffman laid down the “chuck” rhythm on the mandolin over bassist’s Mike Devol’s bouncy riffs. The nearly 10-minute jam lead into “Ain’t No Bread in the Breadbox,” then came back into another eight-minute jam on “Don’t Lie” where Beck riffed furiously to build the tune to a crescendo.
The first set closed with another long jam on two songs, with the classic “Reuben’s Train” sandwiched between the halves of a bluegrass take on the Traffic classic “Light Up or Leave Me Alone,” with Beck’s Dobro playing the funky opening riff that Traffic played on an electric guitar. Beck also led the segue into “Reuben’s” from the midsong jam, riffing on the main melody line to great effect, and Bruzza and Hoffman harmonized beautifully on the chorus.
There weren’t many song-to-song jams in the second set, but there was plenty off jamming. Greensky kicked off the final set of its fall tour with a nearly 15-minute jam on “King of the Hill.”
While many of Greensky’s jams take on an almost frenetic speed (and are reminiscent of Yonder Mountain String Band in that pace), the band does hit the brake pedal occasionally, sometimes seemingly unexpectedly. Such was the case on a cover of “Doing My Time,” a classic bluegrass tune that many artists take for a super-speed spin. Greensky Bluegrass, by contrast, played it in a more subdued fashion. However, as the last notes of a jam on the end rang down, Hoffman started furiously riffing on a rhythm part and Devol and Beck picked up the beginnings of David Gilmour’s intro to “Time,” and the band played the entire song at a speed that Pink Floyd probably never imagined.
Greensky Bluegrass wasn’t done riffing on classic rock either. The last song of a four-song encore was a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” done in a very, dare I say it, metal-esque style for bluegrass. Beck played Jimmy Page’s slide riff on the chorus perfectly on his Dobro, and Hoffman ripped into the spacey midsong jam with abandon.
Setlist
Set 1: Pig In A Pen, Out And Under, Don’t Lie-> Ain’t No Bread In The Breadbox->, Don’t Lie, Cold Feet, In Control, Can’t Stop Now, Light Up Or Leave Me Alone-> Rueben’s Train-> Light Up Or Leave Me Alone
Set 2: King Of The Hill, Can’t Make Time, Better Off, City With No Children, Tarpology, I’d Probably Kill You, Wings For Wheels, Doing My Time-> Time, Kerosene, E: The Reverend, Demons, Shout, Whole Lotta Love
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is a Denver freelance writer/photographer and regular contributor to Reverb. When not writing and shooting, she plays guitar and violin in Denver band .
