Earl Scruggs in Wichita
On August 7, I got to see Earl Scruggs perform at The Cotillion Ballroom in Wichita Kansas.
Pictures of the show can be found here. It took me a while to get the lighting and flash settings right. Sorry some of them are dark.
I knew nothing of the opening band, Mountain Heart, but Barry Abernathy's banjo playing was the highlight of the evening. I didn't know this until I saw him play, but Barry has only one finger on his left hand. Watching him play is just fascinating and exciting at the same time. Granada told me he only recently went to a banjo with a 5th string tuner at the peg head (I didn't get a look but I am assuming it's tunnelled). I can't imagine playing the way he does with the 5th string tuner in the way.
Toward the end of their set we had a broken string incident, but that gave us about a 15 min fiddle solo. Wow can Jim play.
Mountain Heart only played for about 20-30 minutes.
Earl came out about 9:00.
I only recognized one other person, and that was Glen Duncan (who plays on the Three Pickers concert), though I had seen pictures of Gary Scruggs I did not even recognize him.
Earl played mostly down the neck but went up the next a few times. He also finger picked the guitar for a couple of songs. He sounded good but there wasn't much new to hear.
The performance lacked energy. Everyone there was clearly excited to see the legend, but I think the combination of the poor turnout (this show was very poorly publicized) and the choice of songs greatly affected the energy level of the crowd. I think the banjo fans were there to hear and watch Earl, and the non-banjo fans were there to hear the songs they know. By playing the more recent stuff (like from the Scruggs and Friends CD) most of the songs didn't fall into either of these categories. I suspect this is a trademark of the "& Family" performances.
The sound in the middle of the audience was very bad. I scooted over to get a picture and ended up way on the left side and I could not even believe the difference. I thought Earl was badly mic'ed for half the show, but it was the speaker placement or something else. You could hear him on the side but not in the middle.
To top this off, this was a darn late show for the middle of the week.
Earl signed autographs after the show. That's where several of the banjohangout folks met each other (staghorn?, Granada, me). I had him sign the back of my Three Pickers DVD.
Pictures of the show can be found here. It took me a while to get the lighting and flash settings right. Sorry some of them are dark.
I knew nothing of the opening band, Mountain Heart, but Barry Abernathy's banjo playing was the highlight of the evening. I didn't know this until I saw him play, but Barry has only one finger on his left hand. Watching him play is just fascinating and exciting at the same time. Granada told me he only recently went to a banjo with a 5th string tuner at the peg head (I didn't get a look but I am assuming it's tunnelled). I can't imagine playing the way he does with the 5th string tuner in the way.
Toward the end of their set we had a broken string incident, but that gave us about a 15 min fiddle solo. Wow can Jim play.
Mountain Heart only played for about 20-30 minutes.
Earl came out about 9:00.
I only recognized one other person, and that was Glen Duncan (who plays on the Three Pickers concert), though I had seen pictures of Gary Scruggs I did not even recognize him.
Earl played mostly down the neck but went up the next a few times. He also finger picked the guitar for a couple of songs. He sounded good but there wasn't much new to hear.
The performance lacked energy. Everyone there was clearly excited to see the legend, but I think the combination of the poor turnout (this show was very poorly publicized) and the choice of songs greatly affected the energy level of the crowd. I think the banjo fans were there to hear and watch Earl, and the non-banjo fans were there to hear the songs they know. By playing the more recent stuff (like from the Scruggs and Friends CD) most of the songs didn't fall into either of these categories. I suspect this is a trademark of the "& Family" performances.
The sound in the middle of the audience was very bad. I scooted over to get a picture and ended up way on the left side and I could not even believe the difference. I thought Earl was badly mic'ed for half the show, but it was the speaker placement or something else. You could hear him on the side but not in the middle.
To top this off, this was a darn late show for the middle of the week.
Earl signed autographs after the show. That's where several of the banjohangout folks met each other (staghorn?, Granada, me). I had him sign the back of my Three Pickers DVD.
I came out of the concert exhilarated from seeing and hearing Earl in person, but it was not because of the music they played. It was because he's, well, Earl.
This is a partial set list, from memory.
open: salty dog
earls breakdown
a couple of songs from "Scruggs and Friends"
you are my flower
another carter family song
ballad of jed clampett (which I just started to learn this week so that was a treat)
foggy mountain breakdown
encore: reuben
Gary Scruggs elec bass
Jennifer Kennedy dobro
some guitar dude
John Jorgen Mandolin, elec guitar
Glen Duncan Fiddle
didn't catch the drummer's name (drums in bluegrass, grr..)
Gary Scruggs elec bass
Jennifer Kennedy dobro
some guitar dude
John Jorgen Mandolin, elec guitar
Glen Duncan Fiddle
didn't catch the drummer's name (drums in bluegrass, grr..)
posted by Rob at 6:33 AM
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