Photo by Geoff Mintz

Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Telluride, Colo.
June 20-23

It felt as if The String Cheese Incident was just playing a show for a bunch of close friends – and in many ways, that’s exactly what it was. But in the process, these trailblazers of their own genre slathered the icing atop the Telluride Bluegrass birthday cake and permanently etched a legendary tale in Colorado jamgrass history.

“Wow, this brings back some memories,” said SCI’s Michael Kang moments after the band nearly blew the roof off Telluride’s 100-year-old Sheridan Opera House with a raging, 15 minute-long “Shine” to open the set. Not since 1998 had the group played the historic venue, once a staple of its touring schedule, but with a capacity of roughly 300, not the kind of place that has been able to house demand for Cheese in quite some time.

However, on a weekend celebrating the 40th anniversary of the world’s greatest bluegrass festival and with a full moon overhead, anything and everything was possible.

Unbeknownst to the audience, String Cheese contemporaries and fellow Coloradans Leftover Salmon were en route from the grandiose main stage in Town Park to the compact, more subdued stage of the old opera house. By most accounts, it would be the first time these two pioneering bands of Colorado’s newgrass movement have played together since the late 1990s.

Many “Festivarians” (as concertgoers in Telluride have come to be known) were freaking out about this show – and for good reason. It was undoubtedly the highlight of the four-day, four-decade celebration. Eleven-thousand were said to have attended the festival; only a few hundred, via guest list and lottery, gained a wristband for Saturday’s late-night performance downtown.

For a Cheese fan like me, it’s basic instinct to harp on this single two-hour-long “NightGrass” event, but examining the festival up until that moment, one might even venture to say String Cheese was upstaged on the main stage. It was that good.

In the beginning

The story of the 40th annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival (TBF) begins with unsettling news of Mumford and Sons bassist Ted Dwane suffering a blood clot in his brain two weeks before the event. The quartet, which above all others on the bill enjoys broad, mainstream appeal, was set to headline the main stage on opening night, Thursday, and play an intimate performance at the Sheridan Opera House on Saturday.

The Facebook page of festival organizer Planet Bluegrass was abuzz with mixed reactions to the news. Some wanted their money back; others could care less. Most just wanted to play fantasy promoter and throw in their own two cents regarding who should fill those premier slots. Almost immediately, there was a sweeping assumption that String Cheese Incident would occupy the Saturday opera house vacancy.

The following day, TBF organizers made it official, and a swirl of anxiety mixed with determination set in among Cheese’s loyal followers, of which there were many in the San Juan mountain village that weekend. For most, their fate was simply in the hands of the lottery gods, and there wasn’t much else that could be done about it.

Thursday: A festival awakens

Most Festivarians trickled into town on Thursday and set up camp at one of several designated grounds in and around the village, although there was also a dedicated population of TBF enthusiasts who had been there all week.

Town Park, which hosts the main stage events, is perfectly exposed to the west with the extreme Telluride Box Canyon and Bridal Veil Falls to the east. Anyone who has ever spent time in the mountains knows this is a recipe for some extraordinary summertime alpenglow (that golden hour during which the setting sun strikes the mountains, lighting them up in magnificent fashion).

Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell played the opening “sunset set,” a coveted slot, not just on Thursday, but every night of the festival. The duo and their band delivered a soothing performance, suitable for the more low-key opening night.

One of the more country-sounding artist of festival, Harris is always a crowd-pleaser among the more senior Festivarians, whose presence was immense at this 40th anniversary. Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the weekend is confluence of generations attending the massive event. Children, young adults, middle-aged folk and seniors are all drawn to Telluride – and their coexistence is effortless.

In the band’s final song, as the moon rose over the mountainside, Harris and Crowell were joined by fiddler Sam Bush, who made the first of what was quite possibly a record-breaking number of cameos at this festival.

In Thursday’s headlining slot, which had been vacated by Mumford and Sons, comedian Steve Martin and his string band, Steep Canyon Rangers, were joined by Edie Brickell. Their musicianship was excellent, but to fill the void left by the English folk-rockers may have been too much to ask. The show consisted of series of prepared jokes by Martin sprinkled between well-executed, yet sleep-inducing bluegrass. Martin’s shtick just seemed a little too hokey for the 10 p.m. slot, and many Festivarians flocked for the exits.

The late-night crew – at least a good chunk of it – made its way down to the Greensky Bluegrass show at the Palm Theater, a high school-style auditorium able to accommodate 600-plus after-hour connoisseurs. There were three NightGrass events scheduled each evening of the festival (except Sunday) – all of which were sold out, but tickets were not impossible to track down.

With their trademark thunderous sound and youthful appeal, Greensky Bluegrass was a perfect choice to rock the Palm on Thursday night. Aided by an impressive light show and glowing pillar-like backdrop, the string band from Kalamazoo, Mich., which had also played the main stage earlier that day, absolutely annihilated the jam-packed theater, covering Dire Straights’ “Money for Nothing” and closing out the set with Bruce Springsteen’s “Atlantic City” at 1:30 a.m. The venue’s acoustics were a little boomy, but no one seemed to mind at that point in the evening. Greensky sent everyone off to their campsites with a spaced-out “Could You Be Loved” encore in the shadow of a Rastafarian-lit background.

Photo by Geoff Mintz

Friday: Cheese me

The morning sun pried its way into the tents of Festivarians earlier than many had hoped.

There was a long, hot, mostly shadeless day ahead. Coconut water extracted from a cooler of melted ice and a dip in the river would be somewhat effective in rehabilitating the slow-movers. For a large portion of that group, Friday was all about the 7:15 p.m. sunset set, which would mark String Cheese Incident’s reemergence onto TBF stage for the first time in a decade.

Just before noon, I arrived at the Hotel Telluride, where two of my friends had arranged a twice-daily gig in the lobby in exchange, of course, for a room to crash during the week.

“You missed it,” my friend Andrew Portwood said. “The Olora Incident!”

Portwood and his comrade Sean Healy comprise the talented, Colorado-based Olora Brothers. They’re also both big fans of String Cheese, so when Keith Moseley, bassist for that very same group, decided to sit in with the duo in hopes of warming up his self-admitted rusty skills on stand-up bass, the two were on cloud nine.

“Do you want to play some String Cheese songs,” Portwood asked.
“No, I play those all the time. Let’s play some of yours,” Moseley replied.

The pickers played some original music, per Moseley’s request, then wrapped up the breakfast set with The Band’s “Don’t Do It” and Grateful Dead’s “Bertha.”

Up on the main stage, Trampled by Turtles was among the earlier acts in the day, bringing their own brand of string-band “fastgrass” to the modern-era festival. They finished up the set with Bob Dylan’s “If You Gotta Go, Go Now.”

Soon after, bluegrass legend Peter Rowan’s Twang an’ Groove rose to the festival stage. And it was hot, really hot. But Rowan’s calming presence and the shade of an aspen tree, just outside the festival’s inner gate was enough to ease the weariest of Festivarians – or at least it was for me.

Rowan was joined almost immediately on stage by anointed “King of the Festival” Sam Bush. Together, the festival legends presented a sedate rendering of “In the Pines,” an American folk song dating back to the 1870s, but better known in some circles as “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” with which Nirvana culminated its now-hallowed “MTV Unplugged” recording.

The set seemed to ascend ever so gradually in tempo, and midway through “The Cuckoo Bird,” a pair of fiddle solos by Bush was enough to get audience up onto its feet in the scorching midday sun. The set concluded with the tranquil “Land of the Navajo” and TBF staple “Midnight Moonlight.”

A quick ride up the Telluride mountain gondola, in part to escape the afternoon heat, and the sunset set was nearly upon us. String Cheese guitarist Billy Nershi told the local Telluride newspaper the band anticipated playing an “old-school” set in honor of the 40th bluegrass shindig.

In a conversation days after the show, Moseley confirmed that was the plan: “A personal favorite of mine is to play the sunset slot. … We requested to play in the daylight this time and just have a little different vibe. We tailored the set to be a little bit lighter than maybe our electronic vibe or the heavy rock stuff. We did more of a bluegrass, world-beat, String Cheese-sort of thing.”

They opened with the high-energy “Can’t Wait Another Day” and proceeded into an inspiring “Barstool” with solos by Kang, Nershi and Kyle Hollingsworth. The performance was powerful, as the band ripped apart “Indian Creek,” then “Little Hands” into “Mouna Bowa,” through which the set reached an early climax.

The men on stage became dramatically pensive during a moving performance of “Struggling Angel,” a tribute to fallen friend Sarah Gewald, whose sudden passing in 2012 devastated the SCI community. It’s always an emotional song for the group, but rarely, if ever, has it been performed surrounded by such dramatic beauty. Kang ignited the electric guitar, while drummer Michael Travis appeared to be fighting back his emotions. Moseley, who wrote the song and bears a harmonica throughout, was stoic and solemn.

“To walk out there and play in the daylight and look up at that box canyon, it’s not like anywhere else you play,” said Moseley. “It’s just such an amazing view from stage. To look out on the crowd and see so many familiar faces in the beautiful, soft late-afternoon sunlight, the golden hour there in Telluride, it’s hard not to feel emotional about the whole thing.”

The band members proceeded to make an attempt at a reggae vibe with “Stay Through” and accentuated their picker roots (with a splash of Salsa) in “Pygmy Pony.”

The show never really managed to regain the energy of the first half. In a run of songs begging for a traditional SCI banger – perhaps a “Black Clouds” – the band surprisingly chose Talking Heads cover “This Must Be The Place,” which was a little out of place, some thought, as the second-to-last selection in this Telluride Bluegrass main stage event.

While the sun set on the longest day of the year, String Cheese managed to recapture a slice of its first-half mojo with a fittingly upbeat “Colorado Bluebird Sky.”

But Friday’s festival was a long way from over as Masters of Bluegrass featuring Del McCoury, Bobby Osborne, J.D. Crowe, Bobby Hicks and Jerry McCoury took over the main stage responsibilities.

These men are legends and virtuosos of their craft, but scheduling them in a nighttime slot following String Cheese Incident was unfortunate. Were the more senior Festivarians loving it? Most likely, yes, if they were still at the show. The SCI demographic, however, was struggling to fight back yawns.

Dispatch filled the final slot of the evening in Town Park at 11 p.m. Definitely an unconventional booking for this festival, the East Coast rockers were one of its most pleasant surprises. The trio was humble and appreciative to be assuming such a prestigious role as the Friday closer for the 40th annual event. They seemed to be aware that this night wasn’t about playing to the most astute gathering Dispatch admirers, but rather a group they might have to win over.

“It’s a dream for us to be able to play the Telluride Bluegrass Festival,” said guitarist Chad Urmston. “I never thought it would happen. Thanks for giving us a listen.”

The crowd dwindled in Town Park – probably because Dispatch couldn’t hold onto the Masters of Bluegrass people, and vise versa. Also, there was a packed-house Infamous String Dusters rager down at the Palm Theater, which at least one seasoned festival-goer called “the best bluegrass show I’ve ever seen.” Those of us who missed it – opting instead for a relatively early retirement into the sleeping bag – regretted it the next day.

Festivarians who stayed for Dispatch, at least a few thousand of them, were thoroughly entertained. The boys made a clear effort to adapt to the spirt of the festival, rather than buck its theme. They enlisted the services of Boo Reiners (on banjo) and invited Elephant Revival’s Bridget Law (on fiddle) and Bonnie Paine (on washboard) to sit in periodically throughout the show. The folky interplay and jamminess at certain points was impressive, and the crowd was digging it.

Dispatch played all of its greatest hits, most from more than a decade ago, as if to maximize the oh-yeah-I-know-this-song factor. “Here We Go,” “Two Coins,” “Flying Horses” and “The General” all made it onto the setlist. The highlight for many was the band’s own “Bang Bang” into Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil” back into “Bang Bang,” which included a stylish solo by Pete Heimbold.

Ultimately, Dispatch conformed without compromising its own style (something, actually, String Cheese may have struggled with earlier that night), and for that, we saluted them with one final beer and called it a night.

Photo by Geoff Mintz

Saturday: The King and his kingdom

In an effort to not miss any further “Incidents” in the hotel lobby, we got moving quite a bit more rapidly on Saturday morning. But upon arrival, Moseley nor any other band members were anywhere to be seen. A hot breakfast and coffee over some good pickin’ would be more than enough, however, to get the day rolling.

Approaching the festival gates, there was a noticeable influx of ambitious, young 20-somethings waiving their fingers in the air. Ah yes, they’re all hoping to find a ticket to Cheese tonight, I realized. The lottery winners had been posted the night before. Thousands entered; most were disappointed.

Festivarians, those not waiving their finger in the street, caught some rays and relaxed to the intoxicating sounds of Dobro master Jerry Douglas, one of the festival’s mainstays, playing a trance-inducing cover of Leadbelly’s “On A Monday.” It was a beautiful set, but not the kind that would motivate people up onto their feet in the midday sun.

That task was sufficiently executed by Colorado’s own Yonder Mountain String Band, who at 4 p.m. registered one of the most raging main stage performances of the festival. Jeff Austin, animated as always, riled up the crowd with opener “Snow On The Pines” into “Follow Me Down To The Riverside” back into “Snow On The Pines,” while inducing a spirited marshmallow fight among the audience.

There aren’t many things that could have pulled me away from that show – especially since I had spotted Sam Bush dialing in his fiddle on stage prior to the set – but a rumored partial SCI pickin’ jam in the Hotel Telluride lobby was one of them.

Strolling into the lobby as if it were an accident, I scanned the room and saw a handful people hanging out. One of them was Moseley playing the hotel’s house guitar – if you could believe there was such a thing – next to a dormant fire place. Minutes later, however, he would lug his stand-up bass (which never actually made an appearance on the main stage, by the way) out the front door and into a vehicle that would transport him to sound check at the opera house.

Sitting in with the Olora Brothers, The Drunken Hearts’ Andrew McConathy half-jokingly sang, “Don’t go. Don’t go,” as the bassist exited the building.

“I wish I didn’t have to,” Moseley replied over his shoulder.

I thought about running back up to the festival to catch the end of the Yonder set, but opted instead for shade, iced tea and the pickers’ rendition of “Cayman Review” as a crowd of 30 or more eventually congregated in the lobby.

Sam Bush did, in fact, wind up sitting in with Yonder Mountain String Band for the second half of the main stage set, which reportedly included “Sidewalk Stars,” “All The Time” into “Rag Doll” into “Traffic Jam” and a “Down The River Road” encore.

Hours later, the time had come for the King to officially preside over Town Park kingdom, not that he hadn’t been up there several times already, but this was his slot, billed as the Sam Bush Band. “The Godfather,” as he was also called, has played the Telluride Bluegrass Festival 39 years out of a possible 40. Scheduled as both a sunset set and full-moonrise set, the performance was sure to be something special.

And the King did not disappoint. It was easily the best main stage event of the festival, rivaled only by Leftover Salmon later in the evening (partly because Bush wound up playing with them, too).

Bush and his band rocked it pretty hard right out of the gate with modernized version of Red Foley’s “Freight Train Boogie,” followed by “Circles Around Me” containing the lyrics “High in Telluride, up on Bridal Veil,” which was obviously a crowd-pleaser.

It was one of the festival’s more hoppin’ shows, especially as the psychedelic lights were flipped on for the first time all weekend. And it became apparent that no one would match Bush’s comfort level – or maybe even his talent – on the Town Park stage. The show continued with a graceful entrance into “Midnight Rider,” followed by Rare Earth’s “I Just Want to Celebrate,” which was tastefully regurgitated. In one of the weekend’s highlights, Jerry Douglas, with whom Bush has surely played under many a Telluride Bluegrass moon, joined in for an exquisite rendition of Willis Alan Ramsay’s “Ballad of Spider John,” dedicated to festival founders Fall Creek.

The Sam Bush Band closed out with The Band’s “Rag Mama Rag” and Bob Marley’s “One Love,” and as the full moon rose over the mountainside, I was content with the fact that I wasn’t going to see String Cheese at the opera house that night.

If there were others in the audience who hadn’t yet come to peace with this reality, Leftover Salmon’s 11 p.m. set on the main stage definitely aided in that process. The Colorado “slamgrass” luminaries came out swinging with immediate interaction among Drew Emmitt, Vince Herman and young-gun on banjo Andy Thorn, who’s relatively new to the group.

Salmon made an effort to serve up a nice helping of new material at their main stage performance, showcasing the work of the spry, young banjo player who is writing many their new tunes and easily gets the unofficial rising star award for the weekend. Festivarians were treated to a heavy dose of Emmitt on mandolin and electric guitar and, of course, the trademark charisma and charm of Vince Hermann, who was at his best.

Somewhat out of left field, Jackson Browne joined the band and quickly zapped up some of the show’s energy with “How the Hammer Shapes the Hand.” Browne has been a good supporter of the festival, though, and justly deserved some time in the spotlight. He said, “The whole reason we’re on tour is because I wanted to come (to Telluride).”

Leftover Salmon was clearly tickled to play with the singer-songwriter, Emmitt adding, “Holy shit, did that just happen,” as Browne exited the stage.

But the Saturday late-night set wouldn’t be complete without another appearance by – you guessed it – the King of Telluride himself. When Sam Bush walked out onto the stage, all of the angst and jealousy toward those in the String Cheese show seemed to melt away. His solos on fiddle reached new levels, and at times, the Godfather was smirking and shaking his head in amazement of his own instrument.

With Emmitt slaying the electric guitar and Thorn picking up the electric banjo – a tool the youngster has returned to the group in the spirit of the late Mark Vann – the Festivarians, myself included, couldn’t have been more pleased.

That’s when my night changed.

Photo by Ryan Smith

Fantasy of the opera

One of the nice things about being in a small mountain town with 11,000 extra people is cell phones don’t work very well. The towers are all jammed up, so at 11:45 p.m. when I received a message saying there was a ticket waiting for me at String Cheese’s 11 p.m. Sheridan Opera House show, I thought I was running late.

Either way, I was running – from my base camp in front of the stage, through the park, down Colorado Avenue and into the opera house. To my surprise and delight, the show hadn’t yet begun, so I caught my breath and drank some water.

Let’s just quickly revisit the context of this show. It’s around midnight on Saturday evening during the 40th annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival. It’s the weekend of the summer solstice and there’s a full moon overhead. The venue is the historic and beautiful 300-person Sheridan Opera House, celebrating 100 years of entertainment, which included on countless occasions, playing host to an emerging String Cheese Incident in the Colorado music scene. But they haven’t played there in a long-ass time.

Yep, this is going to be good.

“Well, it’s definitely the smallest venue we’ve played in a long time,” said Moseley as he reflected on the show. “It was a treat for us to be able to play such a small room, such a small venue in which we have some great history. … It all brought back a lot of memories.”

Right out of the gate, the audience knew this would be a very different set from what it had experienced in Town Park a day earlier. Despite their relatively stripped-down setup on stage and minimal lighting, the boys came to party.

As they opened with the aforementioned, 15-minute-long “Shine,” I had never in my life witnessed 300 people so happy to be present in a given place and time. The opener was joyfully executed with celebratory solos by Hollingsworth, one of which teased the synthesizer pretty hard, just in case anyone was looking for extra motivation to get weird.

The pace was carried over to a ridiculous “Outside Inside” that was both banger and funk. With a bluesy solo by Kang followed by explosive acoustic work by Billy Nershi, it may have been the highlight of the night.

The fellas worked their way into “Boo Boo’s Pik-a-Nik,” reminding everybody why we were all there: bluegrass, right? It was a fast-paced, hoedown-style dance party with Kang ripping the fiddle and Hollingsworth light on the keys.

In “Come as You Are,” Nershi was masterful in setting up a dramatically more successful dip into the reggae vibe (compared to the previous day) with “Lochs of Dread,” which then turned to the insanity of “Impressions” and Hollingsworth’s unleashing of the synth.

Immersed in ominous background noise, the band, except for Nershi, exited the stage. Moments later, SCI’s senior member slowly began picking at his guitar and gracefully emerged from the trance, delivering what was certainly the emotional highlight of the show: his solo performance of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “Telluride.”

Nershi was then rejoined by Kang on the mandolin, Mosley on stand-up bass and surprise guest Thorn, who made his may down from the main stage. In “White Freightliner,” the quartet tore apart the room with a collective string band arrangement and the most traditional bluegrass offering of the late-night set.

“I had [the stand-up bass] with me all weekend,” said Moseley. “I did a bunch of pickin’ on it at the hotel with some other pickers – can’t come to Telluride without doin’ some pickin’. I’d love to play more of it.”

Not long after, Drew Emmitt arrived for a bluegrassy “Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow,” as many in the house anticipated it was only a matter of time before we experienced a “Salmon Incident.”

Then, a song later, for the first time in a decade-and-a-half, by most accounts, Vince Hermann entered the room and the two pioneering bands of Colorado newgrass shared the same stage – a relatively small stage, at that.

“As soon as we found out that we were doing the opera house, the idea was, ‘Well, who can we have come play,’” said Moseley. “Of course, we have a close relationships with those guys, so let’s call Salmon. They’re up on the main stage. We put the feelers out to Drew. They were happy to do it, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world to have those guys up there.”

From there on out, the show was more of a celebration than a super dialed-in performance. Of course, there was a ridiculous amount of talent on that stage, but anytime you get upwards of a dozen people playing simultaneously, it’s more about the moment – and in this case the party – than aggregate musical effect. Don’t get me wrong, the music they created together was a blast and perfectly managed considering the situation, but it was a totally different animal compared to “Shine” and “Outside Inside” from earlier in the show.

The gathering, which up until that point had been amazingly eclectic, took a dive into the waters of Salmon with Vince Herman’s “Zombie Jamboree,” a fun little tune easily enjoyed by all. Then, to the close out the pre-encore portion of the show, it was Bob Dylan’s singalong “The Mighty Quinn.”

As the encore commenced, Leftover Salmon was graciously sent off to mix a cocktail while String Cheese Incident alone reassumed the stage and rocked an adventurous, hair-raising rendition of “It Is What It Is.”

The two bands congealed once more for the evening’s final 20 minutes of jamgrass delight, playing Nershi’s “Texas” into Grateful Dead’s “I Know You Rider” and delivering arguably the pinnacle live moment in Colorado jamgrass history – not necessarily because of what transpired musically, but because of where, when and with whom this amazing show came to fruition.

It was the happiest I’ve ever seen them.