[UPDATE 10/29/20]: The Greensky Bluegrass drive-in concert at Blue Ridge Falls tonight, Thursday, October 29th, has been canceled due to damages to the venue following a tropical storm on Wednesday night. In a social media post announcing the cancellation, the band, venue and promoters “are going to continue to work tirelessly through the night to be able to see all of your smiling faces tomorrow.” This story is developing.
[10/6/20]: Greensky Bluegrass is getting into the drive-in concert game with the announcement of a three-show run set to take place over Halloween weekend (10/29, 10/30, 10/31) at Blue Ridge Falls outside Asheville, NC. The band will celebrate its 20th anniversary with the run of socially-distanced concerts, which mark the Americana/bluegrass stalwarts’ first shows for live audiences since the pandemic began.
While capacity at the three October Greensky Bluegrass drive-in shows will be necessarily limited to maintain social distancing, the band will offer an ultra-high quality livestream of all three shows via HYFI. Tickets for both the drive-in shows and the webcasts go on sale on Wednesday, October 7th at 10 a.m. ET. For ticketing and more information about the venue and the livestreams, head here.
As mandolinist/vocalist Paul Hoffman explained in a statement along with the announcement of the Greensky Bluegrass 20th-anniversary Halloween drive-in run,
We’re already pretty nostalgic. Tales of tours past, crazy shows we played and the countless friends we’ve made are often the fuel for reminiscing. As we approached the twentieth anniversary of meeting and starting this thing that changed our lives, the topic of the ‘good ole days’ became more common. Then… a year without shows arrived. If ever there was a time to look back, being stuck at home made for quite a setting to reflect.
[Guitarist/vocalist] Dave [Bruzza], [banjoist Michael] Bont and myself met in the fall of 2000. They were playing an open mic I went to. I had just purchased a mandolin and basically said, ‘Hey. I like David Grisman. Can we be friends?”
The three of us became five somewhere between touring in a 4runner and a van. Twenty years is still about this whole band tho. There is no part of Greensky in my heart that doesn’t include all of us. We encouraged Devol to play bass so we could tour and we became four effortlessly. When [dobro player] Anders [Beck] suggested joining us, we brought him out for a tour right away to test the waters all the while knowing we would never be a quartet again. I feel the same way about everyone who has helped us along the way. Our manager, our agents, the crew we travel with and all the promoters who support us from there to here.
I’m so proud of what we have all created. The five of us faced a lot of grueling challenges and setbacks along the way but, really, it was always a blast. I can recall many times when only 10 people showed up to some show we drove for days to make. We always overcame the disappointment with music and making just one of those 10 people stoked.
I’m incredibly honored that my piece of the world is traveling around spreading joy with this family we created together. Our crew, our fans, the other musicians, and all the venues are a community I couldn’t imagine my life without.
Thank you so much to Bruzza and Bont for letting this 18yr old hippie swing by to learn bluegrass that autumn twenty years ago. It lead us to Devol. Then Anders. And soooo much more.
Enough of the past, let’s get outside and play some music to celebrate. See you in Asheville.
While Greensky Bluegrass has not played for a live audience since the spring, this summer the band mounted a “virtual tour” consisting of eight full performances with full production captured and doled out each Friday throughout the months of August and September. Read our full feature interview with dobro player Anders Beck about how Greensky Bluegrass quietly packed the “arc of a tour” into a week at The Pageant in St. Louis for their Leap Year Sessions streaming series here.
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