Spring and even summer are really starting to creep into Colorado over the last week or so, and as a result (I think) I've had bluegrass on the brain. Something about summer in the mountains I guess... Anyways, I was thinking back to one particular show that I went to in college...
In the winter of 2003 I decided on fairly short notice that I wanted to see Yonder Mountain String Band, who hailed from somewhere named Nederland - up the canyon from Boulder according to my road atlas. I was in the midst of a huge Grateful Dead kick and had read an article where Phil called Yonder the next best thing, who the Dead would ostensibly pass the torch to, with Phish on hiatus, as it were. I'd never heard Yonder, but if Phil gave them praise (not to mention my obsession with all things Colorado) then I wanted a piece of the action, so I went straight out and bought
their debut cd. I found out online that they were on tour and in the Midwest. Coming to Indianapolis to be exact. It was a Tuesday night, mid-semester, a few months before graduation. A two hour drive from Oxford seemed well worth the gas money to Sarah and I. This unassuming Tuesday night turned out to be a very memorable experience.
Reeltime Travelers, who have since gone their separate ways, opened the show. I was as impressed by them as I was by YMSB. Amazingly, somebody filmed the entire Reeltime Travelers set from that night, so you can relive it at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72aEHemhJ-I&list=PLD464DF2186986C5C if you wish to. Various members of the band have gone on to their own careers and are hopefully doing well today. Their only album still in distribution is for sale on Amazon, and highly recommended:
http://www.amazon.com/Livin-Reeltime-Thinkin-Old-Time/dp/B0037UTGCS. During Yonder's show they were in the audience and enjoying the show as much as the rest of us. That was a first for me.
Yonder's portion of the night needs little introduction and speaks for itself. You can download it at
http://archive.org/details/ymsb2003-02-25.shnf. As you can see from the YouTube link above, there were only probably 100 people at the show, so the bar atmosphere was intimate to say the least. This was years before Yonder would sell out Red Rocks, which was very enjoyable in its own right and coincidentally also a night I was also able to participate in with them, but this was more intimate and for that very reason to a certain extent, better. I can't really say that they were just cutting their teeth on this cold Tuesday night, since the show was tight and the music was excellent, but again, this clearly wasn't Red Rocks. It was a lot of fun following Yonder's growth over the next several years from this show, seeing them in Austin, Houston, and Colorado, but this likely inconsequential night in the grand scheme of all things Yonder was one of my favorites. Maybe it was also more interesting because it was something new, but I really think the intimate setting had a lot to do with it.
Continuing my little interest theme in things local and small, this memory reiterates to me that the faux-experiences and pseudo-conversations on Facebook and Instagram so many people are participating in these days aren't worth the time spent on them. I've spent more time than I care to even calculate on Facebook in the last 5 years. It's best to diminish the virtual stuff and focus on more real experiences. I'm not saying social media and the internet in general is a bad thing, but I hope everyone who hasn't come to a similar conclusion about their relationship with their Facebook news feed does so sooner than later. Otherwise, we're all missing out on lots of unassuming Tuesday nights that turn out to be diamonds in the rough.
