Greensky Bluegrass teamed up with a longtime collaborator on Thursday night at The Warfield in San Francisco. Pianist Holly Bowling joined the band for their entire second set and encore last night.
The five-piece jamgrass act had a surprise in store to open as they began Thursday’s show with The Rolling Stones’ “Let’s Spend The Night Together.” GSBG debuted the cover on New Year’s Eve 2016 and hadn’t performed the song again until last night. A run of originals that included “Run Or Die,” “Broken Highways” and “Fixin’ To Die” followed. Next up was a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “White Freightliner Blues,” the classic “Handguns” and the band’s second “Stop That Train” of 2018. Rarity “33443” came out of the Bob Marley cover and gave way to fan-favorite “Wings For Wheels” before the recently debuted “What You Need” ended the set.
When Greensky Bluegrass emerged for the second set they were augmented by Holly Bowling. The band toured with Bowling’s Ghost Light outfit as support earlier this fall. Holly added to the “Just Listening” opener and then the six musicians paired “Windshield” and “Living Over.” Bowling shined a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Eyes Of The World” that followed “The Four.” JamBase enlisted Holly Bowling to perform “Eyes Of The World” as part of the 2015 video series Songs Of Their Own, which was the start of the pianist adding Grateful Dead songs to her repertoire. The latin-tinged “Who Is Frederico” and brief jam on “Eye Of The Tiger” led into a set-closing sequence of “I’d Probably Kill You” and “Worried About The Weather.” GSBG and Holly ended the night by covering Traffic’s “Feelin’ Alright.” Watch fan-shot videos captured by Dylan Bondy and Michael Meyer:
Eyes Of The World Captured by Michael Meyer
Just Listening > Windshield > Living Over Captured by Dylan Bondy
What You Need Captured by Dylan Bondy
Setlist (via Camp Greensky)
Set One: Let’s Spend The Night Together > Run Or Die, Broken Highways, Fixin’ to Ruin, White Freightliner, Handguns, Stop that Train > 33443 > Wings For Wheels, What You Need
Set Two: Just Listening (1), Windshield > (1) Living Over (1)(2), The Four > (1) Eyes Of The World (1), Frederico (1)(3), I’d Probably Kill You (1), Worried About The Weather (1)(3)
Encore: Feelin Alright (1)
- (1) w/ Holly Bowling
- (2) Simple tease
- (3) Eye of the Tiger tease
