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Umphrey's McGee covering Phoenix's "Lisztomania" at the Nokia Theater in New York City. 2.25.2010

For the first decade of its career, Umphrey's McGee made its mark as a free-wheeling jam band, whether onstage or in the studio.

The extemporaneous act tended to preview tracks from its first three albums before recording the cuts. The band took chances in the studio, and its albums often reflected its playful live shows.

However, everything changed with the approach to their latest album, "Mantis," which dropped in 2009. The band didn't play a note of the disc live until it dropped.

UM decided to add strings. So violins, violas and cellos helped flesh out the band's sound.

"We worked on this album for three years," keyboardist Joel Cummins says while calling from Stroudsburg. "We knew that we were doing something very different. We were very patient about it. The whole process was quite natural. We were up for moving down another avenue and it felt good not to do the same thing."

Umphrey's McGee, which will perform Saturday at the Electric Factory, is working on a new album that will drop in early 2011. The disc figures to be a dramatic departure from "Mantis."

Hot on the heels of two blistering shows at NYC’s Radio City Music Hall, we brought you the news yesterday via the headiest cable news channel out there, CN-Brah-C, that Phil Lesh & Bob Weir’s latest project Furthur – and I’d even argue their most successful post-Dead band – would be headed out for a string of summer dates, offering up tickets at around 40 bucks a piece.

Well, as promised Phil, Bob and the 4-Js have revealed a handful of dates up and down the East Coast – in addition to their previously announced festival appearances – that includes a two-night stand at the recently renamed MCU Park in Coney Island. Fans will have a number of ticket purchasing options available as traditional mail order begins tomorrow, while a pre-sale will begin on March 1 and finally the regular on-sale will commence on March 5.

If Wednesday night’s show at RCMH was any indication of just how locked in this band is you’re going to want to snatch up tickets ASAP as they tore through a night of Dead classic’s highlighted by a sublime Althea and the underrated American Beauty chestnut ‘Till The Morning Comes in the first set and monster second set that closed out with the segue induced run of St. Stephen -> Born Cross Eyed -> Eyes -> Morning Dew -> Playin’ (Reprise).

The band includes Grateful Dead members Bob Weir (guitar) and Phil Lesh (bass), along with former Dark Star Orchestra member John Kadlecik (guitar), RatDog’s Jeff Chimenti (keyboards) and Jay Lane (drums), The Duo’s Joe Russo (drummer) and singers Zoe Ellis and Sunshine Garcia Becker.

In an interview on CNBC yesterday, Weir said the group will keep its ticket prices around the $40 mark this summer.

June 25 Rochester, NY—Highland Bowl Amphitheater
June 26-27 Brooklyn, NY—MCU Park
June 29 Jim Thorpe, PA—Penn’s Peak
June 30 Lowell, MA—LeLacheur Park
July 3 Herkimer, NY—Gelston Castle Estate
July 4 Oxford, ME—Nateva Music & Arts Festival
July 5 Shelburne, VT—The Green @ Shelburne Museum
July 8 Buffalo, NY—ArtPark
July 9 Masontown, WV—All Good Music Festival
July 10 Philadelphia, PA—Mann Center for the Performing Arts

Trey Anastasio, leader of the jam band Phish and currently on a solo tour that stopped in St. Louis on Tuesday, seems to have two sides: the unpolished, unrehearsed Trey and the clean-sounding, hit-every-note Trey.

Thankfully for a near-sellout crowd at the Pageant, Anastasio and his backing Classic TAB sextet showed only the latter side as they ripped through about two dozen songs while fans danced and sang along.

Anastasio's vocals and guitar tone sounded on from the first chords of "Shine," which he's used to open several shows on this tour. He kept the energy high through the next three songs — "Push on 'Til the Day," "Cayman Review" and "Night Speaks to a Woman" — letting the three-piece horn section to his right punctuate his guitar solos.

I had a chance to see Trey, Mike and The Duo at The Ryman in 2006. Magic lays within those walls.


Thanks to @mrenick for the updates via twitter

Set One: Shine, Push On Til The Day, Cayman Review, Valentine, Night Speaks to a Women, Mozambique, Let Me Lie, Drifting, The Birdwatcher, Money, Love, and Change, Backwards Down the Number Line@, Wilson@, Blue and Lonesome@*, Beauty of my Dreams@*, Rocky Mountain Shuffle$

Set Two: Gotta Jiboo, Liquid Time, Sand, Tuesday, Goodbye Head, Mr. Completely, Sultans of Swing, Black Dog

Encore: Show of Life, First Tube

Notes:

 @ Trey solo acoustic 

* with Del McCoury

 $ with Full Tab and Del McCoury Band

Setlist confirmed via Taper: taylorc

Download Taylorc's torrent via Etree
Source: Schoeps mk41> KCY> Schoeps VMS02IB> SD 744t (@24bit/96kHz)
Location: Section 12, Row M, Seat 8, DINA, 8' Stand