Photos by Tim Dwenger
The Scene: While it wasn’t packed by any means, the 1stBank Center was amped up for the first of three String Cheese Incident shows last Monday night despite the bitter cold, snowy darkness that had enveloped Denver shortly after Christmas. All the regulars were riding the rail, there were stilt walkers and hula-hoopers, costumes, and of course glitter…lots of glitter. When we first took our seats, I was a little worried that the room might feel empty for the show but by the time the band took the stage at about 8:45 the floor was just about full and all but the sections opposite the stage were pretty populated. For a Monday night show on a bitter, bitter cold Colorado night, it wasn’t bad.
String Cheese Incident: To say the boys came out of the gate hot would be an understatement; a fiery and playful “‘Round The Wheel” saw the band pick up where Fall tour left off as they nodded to the snowy conditions outside. This 17 minute monster veered pitted high energy acoustic jams against synthed out ambient space as it set the stage for a satisfying 1st set that featured pretty melodies, dark electronic passages, and even some roller-skate Funk.
As we settled into the groove, the Reggae inflected “Sirens” took the 1stBank out to space for a little while before the slightly pedestrian “These Waves” brought things back to earth. That said, the set really took off when the jam out of “These Waves” developed into a percussive beast that the whole room undulating. The band followed the lead of this jam and slipped into “Bumpin’ Reel” at exactly the right moment to keep the energy in the room high. As the song developed behind Travis and Hann’s beats and Kang’s fiddle, the peaks were crushing and we saw flashes of the brilliance that was to be on full display on Tuesday night.
The band took a break to collect themselves before the more straightforward Rock of “Outside And Inside” hit heights reminiscent of the early 2000’s and turned into a launching pad for the funkiest section of the evening by far; a dirty, two part take on “Dirk” that featured a full version of Kool & The Gang’s “Get Down On It” sandwiched in the middle. With the disco ball in the center of the arena on display it was tempting to break out the roller skates and take advantage of the arena’s spacious floor but, alas, the set came to close with no roller skaters only a high bar set for the second set of the evening. Sadly the band didn’t live up to it.
With the exception of a solid set closing version of “Shine,” the second set featured latter era SCI songs that just didn’t pack the punch they could have for me. Sure, “Colliding” gave us hope for an epic set as it got weird, dark, and flirted with EDM space, and “Wheel Hoss” gave us a taste of the Barefoot Boys Bluegrass talents, but this set just didn’t hit the peaks that the first set had. I think what really got me was the trio of songs that filled the meaty middle section of the set. “Until The Music’s Over,” a less than memorable track from a less than memorable album in One Step Closer, led into the equally mediocre “It Is What It Is” and then Kang broke out the relatively new tune “You’ve Got The World” that, with the exception of great moments from Hollingsworth on the keys, did nothing for me.
They wrapped the set with, as Billy noted later, a 30 plus minute excursion into “Looking Glass” and “Shine” that featured some solid playing a long spacey jam, but wasn’t enough to save the set in my opinion. To top it all off, they chose another new tune, “Beautiful,” to drop into the encore slot and that left many fans scratching their heads and hoping the band hadn’t lost the mojo that they had raged so wonderfully throughout the Fall tour and the first set of the night. Fortunately Tuesday night’s show proved that Monday’s second set was a fluke, but more on that later . . .
Energy: B
Musicianship: A-
Sound: A
Stage Presence: B
Set/Light Show: A
Overall: B
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