Watch: Billy Strings Courts Greensky Bluegrass Members Paul Hoffman and Dave Bruzza on Select Songs During Final Night in Denver
Photo: Stevo Rood
It was a busy weekend for bluegrass golden child Billy Strings, who took his winter tour to the Ball Arena in Denver for three concerts, beginning on Friday, Jan. 24, and lasting nightly till Sunday, Jan. 26.
The run represented the ensemble’s first since their full-throttle Crescent City bust into 2025, and Strings’ pre-tour activities: sitting in with country/bluegrass artist Zach Top for a pick-off and choice numbers on Thursday night, Jan. 23, continuing their collaborative history, which includes a three-song Apple Music Nashville Session EP, that landed in November.
The venue location marked a significant proportional shift for the artist and his band: Billy Failing (banjo), Royal Masat (bass), Jarrod Walker (mandolin), and Alex Hargreaves (fiddle), considering the massive 21,000 capacity of Ball Arena, the band’s largest room to date, and a touch point of concert conversation on night one when Strings acknowledged the significance of bluegrass music pulling a crowd to that stature.
Like clockwork, and as if there had been no seasonal break, Strings and company strode to their positions on Friday night, the weekend’s unofficial warm-up, which boasted the first-ever “Wargasm” opener and a bust out of the Beatles’ narrative of black mining hills of Dakota, and a young boy named, “Rocky Raccoon,” last played on August 9, 2023.
Karma was on Strings’ side going into night two. After the musician gave back during the daytime hours, volunteering with Denver Rescue Mission, he returned to Ball Arena on Saturday night, where he marked his setlist with a homage to Jeff Austin, a Centennial State resident for many years, on “Run Down,” in addition to exemplary traditional ad-libs.
The band floored it, entering night three with gas left in the tank and songs to sing, beginning with a cover of Larry Sparks’ “Takin’ a Slow Train.” They peppered set one with pulls from the greats, Ralph Stanley (“Ralph’s Banjo Special”) and Shorty Medlock (“Train, Train”), and carved a railway motif that nodded to the city’s status as a hub for tracks.
Rather than continue with renditions of sage material, Strings used the onset of Sunday’s second set to work through a series of originals: “In the Clear,” “Taking Water” paired with “Ice Bridges,” “I’ll Be Gone a Long Time,” “Be Your Man,” and “Highway Hypnosis.”
Strings concocted a plan for the final display of the latter portion of frame two, inviting members of Greensky Bluegrass, Dave Bruzza and Paul Hoffman to join in on select songs. Previously, in March 2024, they elicited assistance from Strings during Greensky’s Ryman stand. Thus, Sunday night saw a return of the favor, with Strings tapping the players/bandmates to sit in on their own Five Interstates feature, “Reverend,” followed by Hartford’s “Joseph’s Dream,” and lastly, some “Courage for the Road.” Watch below.
Sans guests, the billed band spilled out the final song of set two, “The Beginning of the End,” before returning to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and singing into a freestanding mic “Richard Petty” and Jimmy Martin’s “Tennessee.”
Strings will resume his winter tour with a sold-out run at Asheville, N.C.’s ExploreAsheville.com Arena, Feb. 7-8 and Feb. 14-16, 2025. For the latest information, visit www.billystrings.com/tour.
Billy Strings’ complete winter tour will be livestreamed via nugs.net, including the Ryman finale, available with an All Access subscription. A free live audio stream is also available to everyone. Don’t miss a note!
Billy Strings
Ball Arena – Denver
Jan. 26, 2025
Set I: Slow Train, Must Be Seven, Ralph’s Bajo Special, While I’m Waiting Here > Train, Train, Ernest T. Grass > Little Maggie, Hellbender, Love and Regret, Streamlined Cannonball, Stratosphere Blues/ I Believe in You, Turmoil & Tinfoil
Set II: In The Clear, Taking Water > Ice Bridges, Gone A Lobg Time, Be Your Man, Highway Hypnosis, Reverend+, Get No Better+, Courage For the Road, The Beginning of the End,
Enc.: Richard Petty@, Tennessee@
Notes:
+ With Greensky Bluegrass members Dave Bruzza and Paul Hoffman
@ Single mic
