Umphrey’s McGee :: December 30, 2004
Riveria Theater :: Chicago, IL
My jaw is still dropped, even after sleeping nine hours. You’ve got to love and hate a show that ends by 10:15; this can mean an early night or an even crazier night, depending on how you roll. Amidst the relative chaos getting in (I’ve never stood in line that long for a UM show) and getting out (the Red Line station was packed), Umphrey’s McGee gave their fans a real treat on Thursday night, even including a Booty Wax to end 2004 (“Break out the booty wax…It’s Thursday Night!”). The joy I experienced will hopefully be able to be relived at some point in the near future; they were filming these two shows for a DVD.
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Unfortunately, I haven’t had a lot of time to continue to perform the blog updates that need to happen. I’ll be working on the blog this weekend, so let’s expect some good and heady changes.
I’ll see everyone at Umphrey’s McGee tonight!
Obviously, it’s Christmas today. Everyone have a very safe, happy, heady, dank, awesomely-sweet Christmas!
Ho ho ho, bitches!
With Chicago becoming bitterly cold, I was unbelievably happy when Umphrey’s McGee announced that Brendan Bayliss and Jake Cinniger would be putting on an acoustic show to benefit Keys 4 Kids; it was going to be at Schuba’s right down the street from my apartment. If you’ve never been to this bar/venue, try and make the trip. It’s a truly great Chicago spot to see a show.
The show had a great many covers, including That’s the Way (Led Zeppelin) and I’m Only Sleeping (The Beatles), with the latter sending great chills down my spine. Every time I see these guys perform, I want to quit my day job and follow them around the country. Andy had a nice little percussion setup going on, while Joel came on mid set to grab a spot to the left of Brendan on a huge bar stool.
The show highlights to me included Bullhead City, The Crooked One > Kielbasa Sauage, and Roulette with the keyboard part sung by Joel and Brendan. It was a wonderfully intimate show, as I’m sure a lot of their other acoustic shows have been. Read on for the setlist and some photos…
Previously: Umphrey’s McGee on the Cover of Relix
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New and improved!
Harder than your grandma!
I would like to fully introduce the new and improved live music blog banners! Thanks to John at GDRadio for encouraging me to actually make one, but I figured that many of the live music blog fans are going to want to snatch these up and throw them up on their blog just as fast as they can. I even added a nice little sidebar banner so that I can be as blog friendly as I can. The picture is extremely appropriate if you ask me. :)
I’m planning on keeping this site going for as long as I possibly can. One of the unbelievable things about blogs is that they are cheap to run, cheap to maintain, and easy to change with your changing life.
JamBase broke the story first according to my feedreader (although I’m sure that it was WSP that actually broke the news).
This is going to be awesome! Three whole nights in the lovely Chicago Theater! I’m excited that the theater I walk by every single to day to get to work will be hosting one sick weekend of music. I want to say that I know I should attend all three nights because it’s going to be amazing, I just know that when the time comes I’ll pass on at least one of the shows.
Previously: Widespread Panic will return in 2005 (prelim)
