2021 came to a pretty rotten close for the guys in Greensky Bluegrass as they were forced to cancel their New Year’s run in St. Louis due to (yep you guessed it) COVID-19. “Alas, members of the Greensky Bluegrass team are currently COVID positive and we have made the difficult decision to cancel our New Year’s shows in St. Louis. We are extremely disappointed and upset, and we are also very sorry that is an inconvenience for a lot of people with plans and, frankly, for a lot of people who just need to get out and shake some shit off, including ourselves,” Paul Hoffman said in a Facebook video posted just days before the shows were set to take place. Hoffman also made it clear that since the band and crew would have likely completed their quarantine and isolation a few days into the new year, the scheduled shows at The Mission Ballroom were full steam ahead.
Fast forward to Saturday night at AEG’s gorgeous facility in RiNo and Greensky did indeed take the stage. First for a brief, five song, soundcheck set that raised more than $10,000 for the victims of the Marshall fire that claimed more than 1,000 homes on December 30th. When it was time for the main event the room was probably three quarters full and, there were very few masks in sight despite the raging Omicron variant that is infecting people left and right. The band came out of the gates with a fire in their belly as Dave Bruzza led the and through a 15 minute take on “Worried About The Weather” that seemed fitting due to benefit set they had played earlier in the evening.
The energy stayed strong as Phoffman took over lead vocal duties on “Demons” ahead of “Absence of Reason” from the upcoming Stress Dreams LP. The strong set continued with “Jaywalking” and the debut of the catchy Mike Devol penned “New and Improved” that allowed Anders Beck to stretch out a little bit on the dobro. To close out the set, a tight “Merely Avoiding” led into “Don’t Lie” and the boys treated the faithful to a nearly 20 minute version of the staple that flirted with “Layla.”
After the break, the second set opened brilliantly with the combo of “Before Bring Out Your Dead” and “Bring Out Your Dead” that couldn’t help but conjure up images from Monty Python’s Holy Grail and I couldn’t help thinking that this might be the band’s tongue-in-cheek way of referencing the pandemic raging around us – they’ve always had a bit a darkness about them after all. “In Control,” “Cold Feat,” and “All For the Money” continued to play with the pandemic theme a bit (if you choose to look at it that way) before they treated us to a nicely segued combo of “All Four” and “The Four.”
The fourth quarter featured “Middle Mountain Towns” that set the stage for two favorites of mine in “Frederico” and the Bruzza led gem “Like Reflections.” The set closed out with another monster of a jam on “Run or Die” and the boys took a few to collect themselves before coming back out to wrap up the run with “Windshield” and the stellar new Anders tune “Monument.” It was a great way to end the evening and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that COVID isn’t keeping Greensky down. Mask up and go catch these guys live on their Stress Dreams tour that features support from none other than The Infamous Stringdusters!
Greensky Bluegrass – Mission Ballroom – January 8th, 2022
Soundcheck Set: Reverend, I’d Probably Kill You (1), 200 Miles from Montana, What Happened to Jim?, Leap Year
(1) Lyric change “Check, check, Billy Strings was in there”
Set One: Worried About the Weather, Demons, Absence of Reason, Jaywalking, New and Improved (1), Fixin’ to Ruin (2), Merely Avoiding, Don’t Lie (3)(4)
Set Two: Before Bring Out Your Dead > Bring Out Your Dead, In Control, Cold Feet, All For Money (5) All Four > The Four, Middle Mountain Towns, Frederico, Like Reflections, Run or Die (6)
Encore: Windshield > Monument
Notes:
(1) Debut
(2) Dylan Langille on woodblock
(3) “Favorite Things” teases
(4) “Layla” outro tease
(5) “Science” Anchorman quote
(6) “Eye of the Tiger” teases
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