Umphrey's McGee: Moody Theater: August 31, 2018

I had heard of these dudes before, heard the name, but had never once hear any of their music.  A friend hit me up with an extra ticket, and I'm all in for seeing something new, so I gave it a shot.  

(quick aside, looking for a video to put in here, and the majority of their top YouTube videos are full shows, shot in HD.  Instead of official videos for singles, its just a four hour video of their show in Vermont or something.  Weird)

Go to 1:18 or so to start the Umphrey's show.  It's actually pretty entertaining, you can just leave it on in the background for a while.

Here's the deal.  Go listen to their most popular Spotify tracks, which I did the afternoon before the show to get a feel for what was coming.  You get a REALLY WEIRD idea of who the band is by doing this.  Their top song is a mashup of Michael Jackson, Fleetwood Mac, and The Weeknd.  For real, not like they've used those influences, but like the song starts with a section of Jackson's "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough," but then the lyrics are Fleetwood's "Dreams," with some asides of Jackson, until the lyrics shift into Weeknd's "I Can't Feel My Face," along with more bits of Jackson, until the tunes shirt straight into the Weeknd.  It's honestly pretty freaking cool, but super strange when you are trying to get a feel for the band.  Is this just a hokey cover band?  Because you also get a Radiohead cover ("Weird Fishes/Arpeggi") and then another mashup thing (this time of Nirvana's "Come As You Are," with MGMT's "Kids," with Dead or Alive's "Right Round.").  They're actually good mashups, but its just weird.  Is that the band's thing?

The answer to that is no.  Those may have gotten the most streams in their catalog, but they never played any of those mashup style songs on stage during this show.  They did cover ZZ Top's Cheap Sunglasses, but they didn't mix it up with anything.

What they did play is the hardest jam band music I've ever heard.  And it kind of ruled.  I'm not your usual jam band connoisseur.  I've seen String Cheese twice and am not impressed.  I saw Widespread once and was kinda OK about it.  I've tried to like Phish, but beyond a couple of their tunes, its never clicked for me.  One of the hallmarks to a good jam band is that all of the players are top notch at their particular instrument.  And the same is absolutely true here.  These guys are very good on their respective instruments.  Here's the difference in the styles: 

• String Cheese would start a song about the foam on a wave being blown by a breeze.  They play a couple minutes of structured verse and chorus of some truly terrible lyrics.  Then they kick into a 10 minute interlude, trading solos and noodling around and getting all jazzy with guitar and synths.  Then they'd kick back into the chilled groove of the chorus and end the song.  It got very boring (but then again, I can't really groove with jazz either).
• Umphreys would start a tune, and then they'd find a grungy rock groove and just crunch around on that for a few minutes.  It was significantly harder than the usual jam band thing.  And for kids raised on grunge and harder rock, it was excellent to me.  its still like jam music, where they are just farting around with the groove and playing something rooted in jazz improv, but it bites instead of brushes.

Big crowd for this show, and the vast majority of them were significantly younger than me (and all smoking weed).  One weird thing that they did, that String Cheese also did last summer, is to take a break in the midst of the show.  So strange.  It gave me a chance to go get another beer, but it is just an odd thing to pause the show, turn up the lights, and let everyone come down for 20 minutes before kicking it back in.

I'd definitely suggest trying on of these shows out, even if you aren't on board with the jam band thing.