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A few days late, but better late than never.
King of the Hill > Mystery Train
Preacher In The Ring 1 > Preacher In The Ring 2
Life In The Physcotropics
Mandolin Rain (3 Mandolins playing) > Grand Tour > Mandolin Rain
Super Freak (Dulcimer)
Good Life (Dulcimer)
I Truly Understand (Dulcimer)
Big Stick
Halcyon Days
Jack Straw (Bobby Hornsby on Guitar & Vocals)
Sunflower Cat > Lot To Laugh Train To Cry
Rainbow’s CadillacEncore: Way It Is
I’m going to start out with a complaint. I wasn’t familiar with Railroad Earth coming into this tour. After hearing them, I happen to think they’re pretty good. However, Bruce has just been incorporating them into his set way too much, and I think it’s kind of taking away from the great feel of the Noisemakers (I’m sure people would disagree). There was at least one person from Railroad Earth playing on every song, except maybe two songs. In some cases, it would definitely add a nice dimension to the song. But for the most part, I really just had no interest seeing them up there with Bruce. They’d be getting the solos and features on songs instead of JT, Bobby, or JV. I want to here Noisemaker solos, not Railroad Earth. For example on Halcyon Days – brilliantly played. But Bruce had the lead singer sing Sting’s parts just like on the record. He sang it ok, not well by any means. Bruce sings Halcyon Days sooooo well, and I’m really not too interested in seeing someone take away lines from Bruce.
I thought the song selection could have been better, but that’s just my own personal bias. The show definitely featured more of Bruce’s bluegrass stuff, which I love, but I definitely want to see some of Bruce’s other stuff as well.
King of the Hill was great, such a unique song, and I think it was the first time I’ve heard it played live in person.
Preacher In The Ring 1 was phenomenal. JV carried the song, and the song was worth it for the bass alone. I was hoping they wouldn’t go into Preacher In The Ring 2 just cause I want to hear more variety, but they did.
Life In The Physcotropics is a good song and I’m a fan of it. But this has turned into almost a nightly song, which I don’t think it should be. After hearing it on Sunday at the Wolf Trap, I didn’t want to hear it again for the sole reason of wanting to hear other songs, but it was still played well.
Mandolin Rain featured Doug on Mandolin, and then 2 guys from Railroad Earth on Mandolin, composing a 3 person Mandolin section, which was cool. I was happy they went into Grand Tour, which they didn’t do on Sunday. But again, I didn’t need to hear Mandolin Rain again after already hearing it a the Wold Trap (Just my own selfishness though as obviously everyone went crazy for it).
The Dulcimer stuff is a nice change up, and fun to see. But for my own preferences, I don’t need to see 3 tunes played on it. One, maybe two will do. Good Life was great though.
If it was up to me whether Bruce would play Big Stick or not, I’d have said play something else, but it was still played really well and it got a bunch of requests to be played, which was cool.
Halcyon Days was excellent, my only complaint as mentioned above was the guy from Railroad Earth sitting in on it, no offense to him.
Jack Straw was probably my favorite of the night. Not because it’s Jack Straw if that makes sense, but just because of the energy it was played. Bobby Hornsby came out to play guitar and sing, and it was just really, really cool to see. He was having a blast and Bruce couldn’t stop smiling. They absolutely killed this one.
Sunflower Cat was great, and you could tell Bruce was in a Grateful Dead mood after playing Jack Straw.
Rainbow’s Cadillac was brilliant, as always.
Way It Is, they played straight, and just like the record. I could have done without it after already seeing it at the Wolf Trap.
If this was the only show I saw this summer, I’d have been ecstatic, and more positive. But after also seeing them a few days before at the Wold Trap, songs that were duplicated I could have done without (But that’s just my own personal bias). I’m big on seeing Bruce play great songs that are a bit more rare as opposed to his hits. But obviously everything they played was phenomenal, and I love every second of it.
Overall, the show was excellent, don’t get me wrong. I just nit-picked at this show in my review 😆 But it was really a great show and Bruce and the Noisemakers took my breath away as always. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that right after the Skaggs tour, the Noisemakers get right back on the road!
Glad you got to VA and although I’m not a fan of Big Stick and repeated assaults of Prairie Dogs, it sounds like an interesting show with Bobby Hornsby and glad you caught King Of The Hill. There have been so many songs neglected (Night On The Town has some great piano) lately but it’s partly making room for the new, and just not keeping the band together enough to repeat cool stuff from previous tours. We’ve been pretty lucky not to have a show cancelled by weather; hoping for some theater shows before I give up hearing the Changes or Long Tall Cool One ever again.
Yea I hear you. I have probably like 20 songs on my “Where the **** have they gone” list.
Nice to see a song like Hot House Ball get played a couple of times on this tour. I can think of many songs I’d rather hear, but that’s the kind stuff Bruce needs to be mixing in.
As you said, getting to see 2 shows in Bruce country in Virginia was unreal and so glad I got to cross that off the bucket list.
Hey JF1 you got my same style when it comes to complaints about our boy BH. I too wouldn’t want all those cameos from members of a band that I wasn’t too familiar with. One or two songs but those cats better know the songs and have killer ass solos. I get frustrated when I see/hear/read that ol’ Brucie is playing the same 20ish songs during the past three years. I mean, bust out from the archives give me Passing Through, Harbor Lights, The Chill, or something…dust off some of those jams that haven’t been played in like 8 years. If I was ever asked what I thought was Bruce’s best years concertwise it would have to be somewhere betweeon 2000-2005 as those years and especially 2001/02 when they really jammed out the improvs and actually played requests as at most the shows I’ve been to in the last couple years, the requests aren’t really getting played as much as they used to…or else those set list wouldn’t be so similar.
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