…I Am A Tree

Archive for the ‘Show Review’ Category

Ahh, now here was a show for the ages. Kim, Barbara, Carl and I made the trip from Golden over to Aspen for this show, having long planned on celebrating our various wedding anniversaries (our tenth, their twenty first) while out in Colorado. I figured the Red Rocks setlist was pretty much a done deal, locked down ages before anyone every arrived in Colorado, so decided to hold off setlist requests until Aspen.

I’d bugged Grubb about Real Love a week before at Vasa, and when we saw John at the hotel on Sunday morning in Morrison, I mentioned it to him, too. I figured that hitting as many of the band as possible was a good idea.

As we made our way up to Aspen that afternoon, I tweeted some additional requests: Everything Comes Together, Hunting Song > Mountain Time, and Black Bear. All seemed good candidates for the post-Red Rocks euphoria for various reasons, and I was really hoping something would happen.

Boy howdy, did it. After a small rest at the hotel, we headed out to Zane’s Bar (I think it was called that) for a light dinner, and then skedaddled over to the Belly Up around 10 PM. Showtime was slated for 11 PM. We set up shop down in front, Skehan-side as usual, and watched some of a snowboarding movie being shown on a screen in front of the stage.

The crowd was different than normal — there were a lot of new people there who had never seen the band before, as well as lots of under-21s. There was excitement building unlike what I feel at east coast shows — people were there to experience something new, something they had been told about, but had never seen.

The band delivered.

When we’d talked to Skehan earlier in the day about Real Love, he’d joked that he’d get For Love on the setlist — after all, isn’t a good murder ballad perfect for a wedding anniversary? Well, there it was in the first set, and we cracked up. John laughed when he saw us cracking up, as he must have remembered what we joked about earlier in the day.

For Love and Walk Beside Me were the definite highlights of the first set. When Phil laid down the lists for set two, we were stunned — we saw Real Love and the Hunting Song > Mountain Time combo. Little did we know what was in store for us. The boys were on fire for the entire set, and when Todd introduced Jeff Miller from New Monsoon (and the band sang Happy Birthday to him), the night transformed from great to mindblowing.

I’ve rarely been a fan of electric sit-ins with the band. Yes, Scott Law is great, Billy Nershi is great, but it detracts from the music for me.

Not so with Jeff. Not only does he have this powerful connection going on with Timmy, but it’s there with Todd, too. They were side-by-side trading licks and egging each other on. The smiles all over the stage as everyone tore up Hunting Song and Mountain Time were simply a sight to behold. The Warhead > Forecast was pretty great, too.

The final song — Keep Moving On — was a welcome surprise, as it really suits the band well. Jeff was called back on stage by Todd in the middle of it, and again, he and the band were simply beaming.

There was magic in the air and it took us higher. Enjoy the tape. It really was EPIC.

Railroad Earth
09/06/2009
Belly Up
Aspen, CO

Source: Schoeps mk4v > Lunatec V3 > Sound Devices 744T

Transfer: 744T > Adobe Audition 1.5 > 24/48 to 16/44 > CDWave FLAC

Recorded by Pete Gilmore, Monkey Tunes Music
Transfered by Dawne Gilmore

Set I
01 Right In Tune
02 Been Down This Road
03 For Love
04 Crossing the Gap
05 Lonecroft Ramble
06 Happy Song
07 Walk Beside Me
08 Hard Livin’

Set II
01 Saddle of the Sun
02 Mission Man
03 Mourning Flies
04 Real Love
Disc 2
05 ‘Happy Birthday Jeff’, The Hunting Song* >
06 Mountain Time*
07 Warhead Boogie >
08 The Forecast
09 E: Keep Movin’ On*

Notes: ¦lt;br /> * with Jeff Miller from New Monsoon on electric guitar

Sidenote: Listen to the crowd yelling “woo” during Mission Man (which rocked). I was teaching it to those down front and jumping around like a fool. It gets louder and louder as the song progresses.

Welcome to the blog version of the #hobocast, something I’ve done for the past five or six months on twitter. What is #hobocast? It’s a link to a tape of a show over on Archive.org, usually, but not limited to Railroad Earth and their side projects. The reason the hashtag (#) is in the name is so it can be tracked on twitter, for those of you who don’t use that particular service.

I decided to put it here on the blog for several reasons.

1. Now that the blog updates to twitter, I can post more info here instead of in a series of tweets like I’ve done in the past.
2. It’ll hopefully generate more blog traffic.
3. I like writing on the blog again.

So to kick off the blog version of the #hobocast, let’s go to the soundboard of Railroad Earth’s triumphant debut at Red Rocks last weekend. It was a perfect moment for the guys, opening for the Allman Brothers Band, and they played what was obviously a carefully constructed ninety minute set. This came as no surprise, I’m sure, to any of us who traveled out there for the shows (they played the next night in Aspen, of which there will be more soon, I promise). Click the link below to move over to the Archive and the media player will be in the upper right corner of the page.

Railroad Earth
September 5, 2009
Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Morrison, Colorado

In support of the Allman Brothers

Source:  SBD (48Khz 24 bit WAV)
Lineage: WAV > Sound Forge (convert to 44 Khz 16 bit, normalize to 98%, fades) > CDWAVE (track splits) > FLAC

Tuning
Long Way To Go
Elko
Old Man and the Land
1759
Like a Buddha
Railroad Earth
Bird in a House
Seven Story Mountain
Colorado

Total time:  1:25.49

Thanks to Railroad Earth and Johnny Grubb

Enjoy!

I wrote up the first day and night in Stroudsburg for Railroad Earth this past weekend over on Ridin’ the Rails.

Over on Ridin’ the Rails.