photo via SCI FB
By song three of its August 12 performance at KEMBA Live!, the String Cheese Incident had caught a wave that would carry it across the two-set, nearly three-hour affair. And the band—like the audience—was stoked as it burned through “How Mountain Girls Can Love.”
Over the course of the evening, keyboardist Kyle Hollingsworth mouthed the notes he played and seemed to have as much fun as the fans were having. Drummer Michael Travis moved like a bobblehead behind his kit. Percussionist Jason Hann was a dervish behind his array of implements. The perennially barefoot guitarist Bill Nershi ran in place and bassist Keith Moseley had kicked off his shoes by the end, also. Only Michael Kang, who alternated between electric guitar and fiddle all night, remained relatively motionless on stage. And everyone but Hann took at least one turn at lead vocals before the night concluded with Bob Marley and the Wailers’ “Could You be Loved.”
Opening in low-key fashion with “Close Your Eyes” and the apropos-for-sopping-wet-Columbus,-Ohio “100 Year Flood,” the 70-minute first set unfurled like the sonic patchwork that defines SCI, from the calypso stylings of the instrumental “Manga” to the funk-hop of “Way That it Goes,” which found Hollingsworth doing his version of a rap between talkbox solos. The set-closing couplet of “Outside Inside” > “I Know You Rider” began with Nershi and Kang summoning Allmanesque guitar harmonies before the vocal harmonies of “Rider.”
Though most dates on its Just Keep Spinning summer tour have been outdoors, the band was excited to be playing inside, Moseley said early in the evening. And it showed in the music and the atmosphere, which matched perfect sound that made all six players audible and identifiable in the mix with a relatively muted light show that left the focus in the ears.
In the audience, no one was hula-hooping, so the fans filled the air with bubbles and vapor.
The 105-minute second set was a trance-like affair, with significant chunks devoted instrumental interludes like the improvised segue that linked “Illegal” with “Rollover” and such compositions as “Rivertrance,” over which Kang (fiddle) and Nershi’s (acoustic guitar) solos substituted for vocals.
The presentation seemed deliberately suited for listening and watching in a dark room rather than singing and dancing with abandon under the stars. To that effect, mellower fare like “Hotel Window” and “Piece of Mine” made appearances and Hollingsworth doubled on percussion for “Get Tight,” giving extra swing to the obvious nod to “Eyes of the World,” and played a keytar solo on “Beautiful.”
That last bit was played for comic effect and it, too, could be loved.
