April Twentieth brought some good tunes to the C-Ville area. Headlining at the Charlottesville Pavilion was Robert Randolph and the Family Band. With his exciting rifts off the steel guitar, Robert Randolph is able to deliver a music performance worthy of laud. The concert was simply energized. Boyd Tinsley made a couple of appearances on stage in which he rocked so hard that Robert gave him props at one point, forgetting that he was still playing. Quite hilarious, they were having a great time up there. As usual, the band didn’t seem to want to leave as the encore ran over three songs.

The tapers were out in storm so I didn’t feel the need to get RRFB but I did do a 24/96 recording of Drive By Truckers, whom which opened for Robert Randolph. Drive by Truckers is an excellent southern band with a little whisky sound to them. They gave us right up to an hour of quality stuff, some of it was from their new CD. I enjoyed it and will post my tapes later.

Man Mountain Jr. laid down some supreme funk jam for the late revelers at R2 after the Pavilion concert. Their set included a guest trumpeter whom I believe I saw playing with the Hamiltons before. The sound was pure and alive as they improvised the setlist. Full props to these guys as they are always good. Look for the tape soon…

Drive-By Truckers:
24 Bit: http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=24627
16 Bit: http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=24560

Robert Randolph and the Family Band:
16 Bit: http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=24602

The Biscuits brought a CD release date to Charlottesville. With tremendous skill, these guys showed what a real jam band can do. The Biscuits brought a furry of dance and energy that hardly another band ever brings. Charlottesville welcomed the band with a line stretching around the venue to get in. I taped however due to a case of still being a noob I had the high gain on the minime still. The tape is just muddled but its all good, I know know and have already changed it to low gain. luckily a pair of kick ass neumans were running behind me. that source will be on the archive. yeah, like this means anything. Bisco played a furious Run Like Hell which was called out by a fellow taper whom which had over 130 disco biscuit shows under the belt as one of the best Runs ever. Helicopters made a great showing in the encore and the band really had the house rocking. my mics were dancing with everyone else as the floors gave to the groove. you could tell there was a slight mix of college students in the air as they wouldn’t shut up. Props to my blockers, sketch crew represented hard and full.

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Ween rocked the open air Pavilion Thursday night in Charlottesville. They played some of my favorite tunes that I know of plus I found some new ones to love. Goofyness prevailed as we were on the receiving end of some wacky reggae along and other older ween displays that the band was having a good time. The encore lasted extra long with a full bow by the band at the end. Being that I wouldn’t consider myself a full Ween fan before the show, they rocked the house and I am totally willing to go see them where ever the are close. Read: Will travel for Ween.

PEEN!

After the Pavilion show some of the late night revelers traveled to Starr Hill for the Peen show. Wackiness continued and everyone had a great time.

Notes about the venue:
I believe the pavilion was about half sold out as the crowd really only stretched from the stage to the soundboard. Don’t get me wrong though, that is still a whole lot of people. Up front the crowd was packed in there.

I taped it.

Ghostface Killah of the former Wu Tang Clan brought a change to my usual concert jam band run. Opening up was M1 of Dead Prez and Beetnix, a local Charlottesville group. Hip-hop was in order for the night and Starr Hill brought the action as always. We arrived with Beetnix on the stage. I didn’t catch much but this C-Ville Beetnix has promise, catch em around town.

M1 of Dead Prez had what I thought was the best to offer. One of their tracks was a full call out of George W. Bush and his imperialistic take on how the USA should act. They call him out for starting illegal wars and torturing people and furthermore, they call out for us to take a deep look at how some of our leadership is terrorizing the rest of the world. I really enjoyed that track.

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North by Northwest hosted an extended jamming session by U-Melt and then a powerful performance by the co-headliners Turkey Bouillon Mafia. Starting off first, U-Melt brought two fantastic hours of improvised jams that truly showed their trademark organic progressive groove. I could gush over the sweet ass segues that were played in sequence with Have a Cigar > Red Star > The Fantastical Flight of Captain Delicious jamming, however you can hear it yourself from my tape archives.

I appreciate all the help from team sketch in getting this tape. It was a good time. Read more for thoughts and pics, links to the tape, etc.

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