Revolutionizing Bluegrass: The Infamous Stringdusters

The Infamous Stringdusters

 

Earlier this month I had the chance to see two live performances by my favorite bluegrass band—the Infamous Stringdusters.  The Infamous Stringdusters are an award-winning bluegrass fusion band hailing from Charlottesville, Virginia.  These guys are known for their radically experimental yet firmly grounded performances within the bluegrass genre.   The Stringdusters are Jeremy Garrett (fiddle), Andy Falco (guitar), Chris Pandolfi (banjo), Travis Book (upright bass), and Andy Hall (slide guitar).  The band's groundbreaking sound is rooted in a solid bluegrass platform that they have taken to a new level, mixing all sorts of creative influences into their compositions as well as their infamously intense live performances while staying true to the roots of the genre.  These guys have a truly revolutionary sound.  I saw the Stringdusters play the Greenfield Lake Amphitheatre in Wilmington, North Carolina and the Bondurant Auditorium at Radford University in Radford, Virginia.   I enjoyed both shows, but I was especially impressed by the Wilmington show.   

Wilmington is a fun, quirky little beach town located at the mouth of the Cape Fear River on the southern coast of North Carolina.   In addition to being a very important historical site for the American Civil War, the Wilmington region is also the original home of the Venus Flytrap, among other things.  Greenfield Lake Amphitheatre is an amazing outdoor venue located in Greenfield Lake Park in Wilmington, and is regarded as one of the city's local gems.   In Wilmington, on the day of the show, bursts of immaculate sunlight in the morning were followed by light overcast cloud cover through the afternoon hours.   There were sporadic light rain showers on and off during the afternoon. The local forecast had called for thunderstorms that night.  Although the light intermittent rain showers had subsided by the time the show started, and local newscasts were predicting the storm to arrive fairly late in the evening, it was still uncertain whether or not the encroaching storm would hold off long enough for the Stringdusters to perform their show.  Indeed, the band announced early on during the show that they would play until the rain arrived, and throughout much of the show it looked as though the skies might burst open and rain down on us at any moment.  The pre-storm low-pressure atmosphere provided an ominously pleasant breeze throughout the show, which added to the already giddy energy of the venue.  However, to everyone's delight the rain held off for the entire show.  In fact, oddly enough, towards the end of the show I noticed that the sky above had actually become relatively clear, which kind of tripped me out at the time.  Nonetheless, it did rain pretty hard later in the evening, when I was hanging out at a local pub with my friends Burt and Courtney, and their wonderful dog Floyd. 

The Stringdusters are very loyal to their fans, and one way they demonstrate this loyalty is by posting nearly all of their live performances online to their 'Show Hive' for their fans to enjoy, usually within hours of leaving the stage.   You can stream a high quality soundboard recording of the entire 4/19/13 Wilmington show below.  I enjoyed the whole show, but a personal highlight of the show for me was the band's performance of "Like I Do" (begins at 42:32), a track off of their latest album, Silver Sky.

Greenfield Lake Amphitheater
(Photo courtesy of John Sawyer Architects)