Wolf Trap – 8/4/13 Review

Neighborhood Watch (Solo)
Candy Mountain Run > Holy Trinity > Candy Mountain Run
Across The River
Mandolin Rain
Life In The Psychotropics
Great Divide
Every Little Kiss (Dulcimer)
Dark As The Night (Dulcimer)
Valley Road (Dulcimer)
Talk Of The Town
Rainbow’s Cadillac
Cluck Ol’ Hen (I believe?) > Jacob’s Ladder > Cartoons & Candy > Jacob’s Ladder
Bach Variations (I think?) > Way It Is

Wow, easily the best Bruce Hornsby concert I’ve ever been to. Better yet, the best concert I’ve been to period. I don’t know if it had to do with the venue or what, but the band was in top form tonight. I’ve only seen shows in NY and Los Angeles, where the following for Bruce is not as strong as the Appalachian area. I guess Virginia shows just have an extra special flare to them. Within the first few minutes of Candy Mountain Run I knew this show was going to some how exceed my expectations. JV and Sonny were so locked in, they were so in unison with accents and rhythm, and Sonny was almost playing ferociously at points (The best way I can describe it haha).

Across the River was remarkable. They got into this rhythm towards the middle that Sonny loves to play. The same rhythm as played during the 5 minute mark of Talk of the Town on the “Live Noise Dagle’s Choice vol. 2”. Across the River also had an awesome build up at the end, which played off that rhythm. I’ve never heard them play Across the River that way, and I loved it.

Great Divide was awesome as always. As I said earlier, JV and Sonny were completely driving the band, and JV killed it on this one.

The most unexpected part of the night came from a shout out in the audience for Every Little Kiss as Bruce was sitting down to play the dulcimer. Of course he gave the whole story about how he doesn’t play it anymore. But then he started strumming it, and then started singing. Funny enough he sang a few lines of Every Little Kiss at a solo show I was at in the winter at the Tarrytown Music Hall in NY because some woman was yelling for it. So I thought he’d just play a few seconds of it here. But no, Bruce continued on playing, and the band gradually started to join in until they played probably a good 3 or 4 minutes of it until the end. It was so cool to see, and when the song ended you could tell Bruce liked it and he said to the audience that he thinks he’ll bring this back into play.

Talk of the Town and Rainbow’s Cadilac were great as always. But Bruce played Talk of the Town pretty close to the record. Would have been cool to see him play it like he did on “Dagle’s Choice vol. 2” with that incredible build up in the middle.

Jacob’s Ladder was excellent, and had even more of a bluegrass feel to it with a few of the guys from Railroad Earth sitting in (A few of them sat in on several songs during the night).

And then Bruce finished it off with Way It Is, which of course the crowd loved. He played it pretty similar to the record, and with the big build up at the end with Sonny going ham on the cymbals.

Unfortunately there was no encore because the Wolf Trap has a strict curfew. I would have loved to see Bruce do White Wheeled Limousine, which I’m sure he would have closed with.

The only odd thing was I didn’t see a request pile on the stage, so I didn’t give any of my requests. Yet Bruce still had a small pile he brought with him. Anyone who was there, did you see a pile anywhere?

All in all, this show was unbelievable, and it’s too bad it couldn’t have been longer (My only complaint). Railroad Earth played from 8:00-9:00 (With Bruce sitting in on their last song) and then The Noisemakers played from (9:25-10:55).