Billy Strings knows how to control a crowd, and not just by whipping his fans into a frenzy with his fantastically frenetic bluegrass guitar work. About 20 minutes into the first set of his Sunday night performance at The Greek Theatre in Berkeley, CA, the 31-year-old prodigy stopped playing. Like seemingly everyone else inside the iconic 8,500-capacity venue, he was transfixed by a fight that had broken out in the stands.
At that moment, Billy used his voice to implore those involved to stop. Once security apprehended the combatants, he and his five-piece band started over with “In The Clear”, the first of four tracks from Billy’s upcoming release, Highway Prayers, to grace the ears of those attendees who didn’t get tossed for bad behavior. But before Billy got back to playing, he had the whole crowd laughing and whooping as he cracked wise on concert fighters for having certain anatomical insecurities.
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As deftly as he handled that disruptive situation, his acumen with crowd control still paled in comparison to his preternatural picking. The man known on his birth certificate as William Lee Apostol put on a spectacular display of axmanship with his oft-electric-toned acoustic guitar, alongside a bit of banjo.
That skill has had Billy on a rocket ride since he dropped Turmoil & Tinfoil in 2017, which accounted for three songs on the evening. He and his band bisected the first set with “Must Be Seven” into “While I’m Waiting Here”, trickled through “Dealing Despair” as the penultimate song before intermission, and used “Pyramid Country” as a lead-in to “Show Me The Door” during the second set.
As is custom for a Billy Strings show, covers accounted for a plurality of the selections. There were plenty of traditional country and bluegrass tracks in the mix. After opening with “Away From the Mire”, Billy and company jumped straight into “The Cuckoo”. Two songs later, as the adrenaline from the aforementioned almost-brawl subsided, they had the house hopping their debut of the flatpicking classic “Garfield’s Blackberry Blossom”. They emerged from intermission with the Scotch-British standard “Dusty Miller”. Toward the end of the second set, Billy and his banjo player Billy Failing tackled another traditional tune with Scottish origins, “Froggie Went A-Courtin’”, as a duo.
Billy Strings — “Away From The Mire” [Pro-Shot] — 8/18/24
As for slightly more modern renditions, Billy and his band cited John Hartford’s “All Fall Down” and Peter Rowan’s “Bound to Ride” during the first set—the latter as the closer before set break—and came back after intermission with Greensky Bluegrass’ “A Letter to Seymour”, along with a pair of picks from the catalog of Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys.
The real treats of the night, though, were the previews of new songs that will appear on Billy’s new album in September. As the opening set came to an end, the band burst brightly through “Escanaba”, an ode to the small town in the Upper Peninsula of Billy’s home state of Michigan.
Come the second set, Billy and his band went back-to-back with fresh tracks. On the heels of “Heartbeat of America,” they serenaded the house with “Gone a Long Time” before picking up the pace on “Leadfoot”. The latter featured both Billy on his Masterton ML-1: Missing Link Béla Fleck Series Baritone Banjo and the song’s uproarious music video in the background. The only other instrument change on the night for Billy came during “Home” when he traded out his usual acoustic guitar for his “Bride” Preston-Thompson D-SBA Custom guitar.
As superlative as his performance was on every instrument, Billy’s bandmates—including Alex Hargreaves on fiddle, Royal Masat on bass, and Jarrod Walker on mandolin—were at least as good on each of theirs. Of course, they had to be, in order to keep up with the badass in the middle of it all.
Billy, for his part, interpolated more traditional acoustic bluegrass picking with psychedelic electrified solos, often within the same songs. All of it was received ecstatically by his fans, whether they were hopping in the pit, spinning on the concourses, or relaxing on the lawn at the top of the Greek. Perhaps no fan’s reaction meant more to Billy, though, than that of Joan Baez. The legendary singer-songwriter gifted him a bouquet of flowers to celebrate his two-night stint in Berkeley.
Next up, Billy and his band will have a few days off on the West Coast before heading down to Southern California for two more shows at Kia Forum in Inglewood, CA ahead of a month-long break from the road. Find tickets and a full list of tour dates on his website. If you can’t make it in person, tune in for a livestream on nugs, free to all subscribers. [Editor’s Note: Live For Live Music is a nugs affiliate. Ordering your nugs subscription or purchasing a download via the links on this page helps support our coverage of the world of live music. Thank you for reading!]
Check out some fan-shot videos from Sunday’s show from Steve_Avers.
Billy Strings — “Must Be Seven” — 8/18/24
Setlist: Billy Strings | The Greek Theatre | Berkeley, CA | 8/18/24
Set One: Away From The Mire > The Cuckoo (Traditional), In the Clear, Garfield’s Blackberry Blossom (Traditional) [1], Must Be Seven > While I’m Waiting Here, All Fall Down (John Hartford), Escanaba, Dealing Despair, Bound To Ride (Peter Rowan)
Set Two: Dusty Miller (Traditional), Heartbeat Of America, Gone A Long Time, Leadfoot [2] [3], Pyramid Country > Show Me The Door, Big Mon (Bill Monroe), Home [4], Froggie Went A-Courtin’ (Traditional) [5] [6], Know It All > Letter To Seymour (Greensky Bluegrass) [7], Hide and Seek
Encore: Uncle Pen (Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys)
SETLIST NOTES
[1] FTP – Traditional
[2] Billy Strings on his Masterton ML-1: Missing Link Béla Fleck Series Baritone Banjo
[3] Billy Failing on guitar
[4] Billy Strings on his “Bride” Preston-Thompson D-SBA Custom guitar
[5] Billy Strings & Billy Failing duo
[6] Last Time Played 2023-07-23 | 85 shows
[7] Last Time Played 2023-11-17 | 47 shows
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