Greensky Bluegrass rolled through Penn’s Peak in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania on Thursday night. GSBG welcomed Holly Bowling on keyboard from opening band Ghost Light to close out the first set.
Greensky got things going with “No Idea” which led into “Help!” GSBG had not played the title track to The Beatles’ 1965 album in nearly a year, according to Phantasy Tour, for a total of 86 shows. The John Hartford classic “Steam Powered Aeroplane” came next ahead of “Do Harm.” Greensky then delivered their cover of “King of the Hill” by Bruce Hornsby which got going with a spacey jam that contained “Moving In Stereo” (The Cars) teases. Greensky would welcome Bowling for “The Four” which led into “Don’t Lie,” the latter of which contained elements of the “Layla” outro on which Bowling added cascading piano, to close out the first frame.
The second set got underway with the Paul Hoffman-penned “Forget Everything” followed by the Dave Bruzza number “Worried About The Weather” — which contained a call back to “King Of The Hill” — before the band returned to Hartford with “I’m Still Here,” throwing in a tease of Phish‘s “Possum” for good measure. “Broke Mountain Breakdown” had “I’m peaking” lyrics in honor of the venue and returned to teases from the Phish catalog with “Bathtub Gin” and “Makisupa Policeman” before heading into Tears For Fears’ “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” and on to “Miss September” to close out the nonstop section. “Who Is Frederico?” — which saw more “peaking” references — came next ahead of the second set closer, a cover of Cris Jacob’s “Bone Digger” (Jacobs will open for GSBG tonight, January 31, in Washington D.C.), which contained a tease of Danny Barnes’ “Death Trip.”
Greensky Bluegrass came back out for an encore of The Stanley Brothers classic “How Mountain Girls Can Love.” Listen to the entire show taped by Keith Litzenberger below:
Setlist via Phantasy Tour
Set One: No Idea > Help!, Steam Powered Aeroplane, Do Harm, King of the Hill, White House Blues, The Four [1] > Don’t Lie [1]
Set Two: Forget Everything, Worried About the Weather, I’m Still Here, Broke Mountain Breakdown > Everybody Wants to Rule the World > Miss September, Who Is Frederico?, Bone Digger
Encore: How Mountain Girls Can Love
Notes:
[1] w/ Holly Bowling (keys)
