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Picture this: a castle in a small town in upstate NY....tables pushed to
the side in the dining room, people dancing, gettin down to the sounds of
drums, a bass, and a banjo....EVERYBODY at Beardslee Castle got down to
Gordon Stone Band on Friday night.
I've seen the band twice in the last year or
so, but never with Russ Lawton who has been "preoccupied," playing with
Trey Anastasio, so I was really looking forward to this past Friday night, so much that I opted out of going to see Oysterhead, and skipped out early from work.
We got to the venue a little late, so we missed a bit of the first set,
but I could tell when we walked in that the guys were just getting warmed
up. It was such a cool place, an allegedly haunted venue, and the sound surrounded us as soon as we headed up the stairs.
The band played two sets, which included a lot of stuff off the most
recent albums, Even With The Odds and Red Room, with great tunes like "Sunday Driver" and "Red Room" mixed up with a little bit of older stuff
(including an Earl Scruggs tune) and a lot of jamming.
Later on, Gordon broke out the pedal steel, proving that the Gordon Stone Band has it all. Gordon even played one riff for "anybody who's on hallucinogens tonight."
In the second set, the guys offered up "some songs with (Russ) singing," playing "Light" and "Too Quick to Judge," a few other songs off of the Red Room album, and, at the request of Beardslee's owner, they attempted (and had great success with!!) "Runaway Jim," which they claimed to not have touched since they recorded it for Red Room (sounds like an album everybody should have, doesn't it??), proving that they're nice guys who know how to thank their host.
My friends and I talked to the guys after the show, picked up a couple of
their CD's (which they so graciously signed for us), and then went ghost
hunting with them in Beardslee's haunted third floor ballroom. The ghost
was a no-show, but the Gordon Stone Band definitely did not disappoint!
Rudy, the ever-so-talented bass player, says the band will be touring more extensively toward the end of the year, and all I can say is get some
newgrass variety in yer jamband diet....GO SEE THIS BAND!!!
Janis Lawrence
JamBase | Upstate New York
Go See Live Music
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