A night at the Backyard…
I managed to get tix to the Great High Mountain Tour playing at the Backyard last night. I got 2 second row center seats for my dad and myself. The tour is a bunch of different bluegrass bands showing off their stuff. Many of them did music for movies like O Brother Where Art Thou and Cold Mountain. There were old timers like The Whites and Ralph Stanley to newer groups like Reeltime Travelers and Sierra and Cody Hull. Alison Krause and Union Station also played.
Once the concert started it didn’t let up for 3 solid hours. Austin was their last stop on the tour and they did a lot of mixing up of the bands. You know, kind of a ‘I always wanted to sit in with y’all. Mind if I sit in this song?’ thing. You also got a lot of jamming when one person would go nuts on a solo and then another player would try to outdo them. Like when Jerry Douglas, on slide guitar, was sitting in with The Whites he and Buck White, on mandolin, kept trying to one-up each other. You could see how much they were truly enjoying themselves. I really enjoyed The Reeltime Travelers . Heidi from their group could really dance. Her feet moved so fast they were a blur. Sierra and Cody Hull, the young’uns, were fantastic also. It’s nice to see that younger folks are learning the old music to ensure it doesn’t die. Alison Krauss and Union Station are by far the best known of those that played but they didn’t overshadow the show at all. They did the same 3-4 songs that everyone else did. The last 1/2 of the show was different combos of bands playing together.
The really neat thing was there was no ‘showmanship’ like at other concerts. The music spoke for itself. No fancy light shows or video screens. No electric instruments. The sound equipment was only there to amplify the music. The musicians did their own sound mixing consisting of moving their instruments closer to or farther from the mic. There wasn’t even a backdrop. They let the trees at the Backyard and the sunset be their backdrop. Even when the cicadas started up at sundown they added to the whole ambiance. You could almost picture yourself back in some Kentucky ‘holler’.
At the end all the groups got up on stage for the closing. There had to be about 50-60 folks up there. They closed with Amazing Grace led by Ralph Stanley. You could see a few performers crying because they knew the tour was over. I gained a lot of respect for Alison Krauss because during the close as she stood near the back and off to the side and let the others take center stage even though she was by far the most popular act. She hasn’t let her fame go to her head.
Now they just need to release a CD or DVD of the concert so I can introduce my son to it. I know not many folks of my generation or younger think bluegrass music is ‘cool’ but I really do like it.
: Old Joe Clark by Reeltime Travelers