Brendan Bayliss Delivers Stirring Speech In Detroit

The start of Umphrey’s McGee’s current tour has been an emotional one following the passing of original drummer Mike Mirro. On Thursday night the band honored Mirro by performing a number of songs from his time in the band. This past Saturday the group visited Detroit, where guitarist Brendan Bayliss took an opportunity to give a moving and inspirational speech to the crowd.

[Photo by Scott Harris]

Towards the end of a cover of Simple Minds’s “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” Bayliss stepped to the mic and reflected on the last 16 years since the band formed. It’s been a long road from the days when UM performed in front of a handful of fans at small bars to Saturday’s show at the 2,200-capacity Fillmore. Brendan talked about that long road and told the crowd that everyone experiences self-doubt at some point. He ended his motivational talk by telling the audience “everything will work out in the end.”

Watch a montage of Mike Mirro photos with “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” including Bayliss’s speech, as the soundtrack:

Here’s the text of Bayliss’s speech:

“You know Detroit, looking out tonight, seeing so many people…words cannot express how good it feels to be onstage playing live music after so many years together we’ve been doing this. I don’t even know how many, it’s like 16 or something. Way back when we were in college we were starting this thing and it was like, when you’re in college you’re a kid, you have no idea what the fuck you’re supposed to do with the rest of your life, but they tell you you have 4 years to figure it out and you gotta do it well, right?

You know when we started, we were playing bars and 15, 16, 20 people would come out and we’d make about $18 and we were full of self doubt and we had no idea that it was going to get to this point where we are right now. And so I want you guys to know when you’re full of doubt and you have no idea what’s going on in your life and you’re down and you’re out, you’re not thinking anything is going anywhere, it happens to everybody, everybody in this room is in the same position. We all have no fucking clue what is going on. So just believe and have faith because everything will work out in the end. It works out for me, it works out for him, it works out for him, it works out for her, for you, for you, for him, for everybody.” -Brendan Bayliss

Brendan gave a similar speech during UM’s debut of the cover on December 30. 

 [Transcription via Amy McMenemy]

UPDATE 2/4 10:20 a.m. PT: Umphrey’s has shared a video containing a slide show that features Mike Mirro set to audio of “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” from Detroit that includes Bayliss’s speech.