WERS 88.9 fm Performance Wrap-Up: Umphrey's Mcgee

March 1st, 2010

Umphrey's McGee rocked their way through nearly three hours of hard hitting, far reaching jams that went from reggae rhythms to shredding metal riffs in a matter of seconds. This Chicago sextet has plenty of tricks up their sleeves, and they weren't afraid to use them when they came to Boston's House of Blues.

Guitarist Jake Cinninger took the most solos throughout the first set and for good reason. When Team Umph passes Cinninger the ball, he takes it to the end zone. Unlike plenty of two-set jambands, Umphrey's McGee didn't need a first set to warm things up.

Set-one started with a performance of "The Bottom Half" which segued into "Higgins," and then back into "The Bottom Half." After the horror-house symphony they took their audience through during "Prowler," they wrapped things up with fan-favorite, "Push The Pig."

After a lengthy set break that allowed their audience to hear the majority of Easy Star All-Stars' Easy Star's Lonely Hearts Dub Band, the Umph came back to the stage, Blasting off, and into "Mantis," one of the standout tracks on their latest album of the same name. 

The second set featured a lot more improvisation that really allowed the audience to feel involved. More than any of their peers on the jam circuit, Umphrey' Mcgee can read their audiences response to an improv segment, and they built their jams around the current affect of their crowd. Umphrey's has even held a recent series of improvisational experiments called "The Stew Art Series (S2)," a concert experience that allows audience members to text in performance ideas that could be seen on a large projector by the stage.

After a choice cover of Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains The Same," Umphrey's rolled up their sleeves and brought the dance floor stank with a nasty version, "The Triple Wide." After the fifteen-minute set closer Umphrey's Mcgee brought the evening's performance to a close with the second half of "Mantis," the opener of Set-Two.

It's this attention to arrangement, and the compositions that frame their improvisational ventures, that makes Umphrey's so much more than "just a jamband." For every comparison you can make between Umphrey's Mcgee and Phish, or The Grateful Dead, you can make a equal comparison to Frank Zappa or King Crimson. The fact that this group can wear so many different faces on any given night makes seeing them so much fun to repeat. Plenty of attendees at Boston's show had been at the last night's show at the Nokia Theater In Time Square, and were planning on catching their next gig at Philadelphia's The Electric Factory. That's how Umphreaks roll. They love hearing something new from their favorite band every night, and the band has the talent and appreciation to reciprocate by giving a truly unique performance every night.

-Words and Images by Andrew Bruss