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Phish played the Hershey Stadium in Hershey, PA on 05-14-2010.  This is the first time since 2000 that Phish has been back to Hershey.  Even though Hershey is a sweet smelling chocolate town, chocolate is hardly the only olfactory hue that is in the air when Phish is in town.  It was a hot and humid day that would likely melt a chocolate bar in a minutes inside  Hershey Park happy land that day.  Fortunately Hershey had set up misting water stations outside as well as inside the venue to keep fans cool.

Phish hit the stage early (around 7:30) to keep them from going past the stadium’s curfew and went right into “Gotta Jibboo” from the album Farmhouse.  This was the first song of an amazing night of Phish tunes. The first set included a lot of old school phish jam songs that put me right back into high school like Chalk Dust Torture, NICU and Fluffhead.  It also included “Bouncing Around The Room” which is usually a favorite for casual fans.  And then, the first set ended with a blistering “Split Open And Melt” which has been one of my favorites ever since I heard the version on their live album “Slip, Stitch, And Pass”.

The second set was packed with great jams…. Tweezer–>Twist–>Piper had some amazing interplay between all of them and some great solos and they rounded it out with the amazing “Free” off the album “Billy Breathes”.  “You Enjoy Myself” off “Junta” rounded out the second set complete with trampoline jumping and intense jamming as you always expect.

For an encore, I could not have asked for anything more.  As tribute to my all time favorite musician, Jimi Hendrix, Phish played “Bold As Love”.

Set I:
Gotta Jibboo
Chalk Dust Torture
Fluffhead
Funky Bitch
Runaway Jim
NICU
Horn
It’s Ice
Bouncing Around The Room
Sparkle
Split Open And Melt
Set II:
Drowned
Tweezer–>
Twist–>
Piper
Free
Velvet Sea
You Enjoy Myself

Encore:
Bold As Love

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Grace Potter and the Nocturnals played a FREE show at Long’s Park Amphitheater as part of their Summer music series on 06-06-2010 in Lancaster, PA.  Grace Potter is a young blues/rock artist from Burlington, VT that finally got the attention deserved when the album “This is Somewhere” was released and Warren Haynes of Gov’t Mule selected them as an opening spot for their tour.  Now, the band is over 5 years old and have a new self-titled release album, “Grace Potter and the Nocturnals”.
 
One thing that is apparent on the new album is that the band was looking for a more slick and produced album than the previous offerings.  The band played a show last year in which they covered the entire 80′s soundtrack to the Top Gun movie, and it feels as though this album was written with that show as inspiration.  “Only Love” is a good example of the 80′s sounding streamlined pop offerings with high soaring choruses a la Top Gun music.    Grace has admitted in interviews that she likes the Hollywood sounds and would love to be Hollywood so this maybe the band’s new direction for the immediate future.

While Grace’s CD’s are great listening, her live performances shadow them by far in my opinion.  Her pitch perfect bluesy voice really comes to life and her band, the Nocturnals, have a lot more room to improvise and jam off one another. Songs like “Only Love” transform from a pop song into a rock song with a lot of emotion when played live.  Grace and the band let it all out on the stage, night after night which means lots of guitar solos, lots of rocking, and of course Grace tearing up the vocals.  Last year, the Nocturnals replaced their bassist with Catherine Popper (formerly of Ryan Adams and the Cardinals) which added an opportunity for Grace to write in some fantastic harmonies. 

This band really blossoms on the stage, go see them live when they are in your area and you will see what I mean.

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Shemekia Copeland played the Abbey Bar inside of the Appalachian Brewing Company on 05-21-2010 in Harrisburg, PA.  Shemekia Copeland is a young blues artist growing up in the footsteps of her father, Johnny Copeland, who was a Grammy award winning blues guitarist.

Shemekia looks like she has a blast every time she is on the stage, she looks like she sincerely loves singing the blues.  She interacts with the audience and even fulfilled a request or two during the set.  her voice is undeniable and her smooth vocal deliveries and her huge smile make her a great performer.

Many of her songs are about busted up and broken past relationships.  While that is nothing new, her brutal honesty makes the songs very personal.  One such song about her being cheated on refers to the day she found out she was the “other” lady and that her boyfriend was actually married.  Her honesty does not stop with relationships, Sounds Like the Devil is a strongly opinionated song the past presidency by George bush.

Three tracks I recommend you listening to are:
Never Going Back to Memphis – A very loose groove drenched in tremolo and reverb and sultry singing.
Who Stole My Radio? – A great pop blues song that leaves you humming the tune for a week.
Sounds Like the Devil – Shemekia shows she is not afraid to speak her mind about politics.

I do not know the setlist, but songs that I am pretty sure were played:
Sounds Like the Devil  
Dirty Water  
Never Going Back to Memphis  
The Truth is the Light
Born a Penny
Rise Up 
Big Brand New Religion 
Circumstances
Breakin’ Out
Who Stole My Radio?
Poor, Poor Excuse
All About You
Strong Enough
Givin’ Up You
Used
Honey Do that VooDoo
Something Heavy

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The Infamous Stringdusters played the 2010 Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival inside of Granite Hill Camping Resort on 05-14-2010.  The Infamous Stringdusters were on the stage just before the headliner, Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas (which also included special guest Tony Rice), and they played after The Seldom Scene.  This was a record attendance for their 60th festival.  I believe they said attendance was over 4,000 this year.

The Infamous Stringdusters’ hard work is beginning to pay off as they are picking up a lot of notoriety in the bluegrass world.  Their instrumentation is articulate and fast, just like a good bluegrass band should be.  For a fairly young band these guys have a lot of promise. They are currently promoting their new album, “Things That Fly”.  While many people at the festival were there to see Alison Krauss, many left fans of the Sting Dusters.  They got a standing ovation by the crowd and they were swamped with people that wanted to talk to them after their set.

The infamous Stingdusters are:
Andy Hall – Dobro
Andy Falco – Guitar
Chris Pandolfi – Banjo
Jeremy Garrett – Fiddle
Jesse Cobb – Mandolin
Travis Book – Upright Bass

I am unsure if the Infamous Stringdusters have ever played a Jimi Hendrix song, but talking to Andy Falco before the show, he commented that he liked my Jimi Hendrix shirt and then during stage setup/soundcheck, bassist Travis Book saw my Jimi Hendrix shirt and warmed his vocals and tested the microphones by repeatedly singing a “Well, I stand up next to a mountain” which is of course a portion of Hendrix’s Voodoo Child.  It got me thinking, bluegrass players are pretty much all phenomenal players (Infamous Stingdusters certainly fall in this category) so I’d love to see some bluegrass Hendrix tunes or at least some Hendrix tags mixed in with some songs.