SCI | 07.19 & 07.20 | RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL

This is the stuff, man. This is where things really get cookin'. The pinnacle. The Incident at Radio City Music Hall represents the very moment we had all hoped for, feared, and saw coming. It was inevitable, really. Sure there is a lot more for the band to accomplish, but the biggest hurdle is now behind this fuzzy quintet, and their progression from here will just be easier. But ho, it is coming. And it cannot be stopped.

The String Cheese Incident is at the top of its game right now. With an amazing, eclectic array of sounds, textures, timing, and humor, they are forcing an uncharted crowd of observers to sit up and take notice. It used to be the fans’ job to push the band every night. Once they get back from Japan, they will have a whole world to impress. You best hop off now before it’s officially dubbed a “bandwagon,” all honking and flashing itself through a town near you. Because it’s coming, baby, maybe even faster than SCI’s meteoric rise to the top of the heap. In one weekend, The Big Cheese quite literally went from the little band that could to the rock show that just did.

The String Cheese Incident story is the stuff of American legend, a great story indeed. Let’s just hope they can keep on keepin’ on...

The opportunity to share in the band’s turning point is an honor. A privilege, really, which makes it all the more daunting to recount.

I have always maintained that to fully comprehend the scope of what goes down at an Incident, you have to be in the building watching, listening, and actively participating. That’s still very true. Reviewing an Incident seems almost futile. It eventually boils down to mere shadow descriptions of the indescribable. Adjectives abound. My thesaurus lays tattered.

The Radio City Music Hall Incident is no exception, either. In fact, it’s beyond exception. It’s impossible to look at the shows separately—it was all one, big, mad Incident. It’s only right that it be reviewed singularly.

Coming off of a guest-fueled bluegrass throw-down the night before at Merriweather Post Pavilion, the electricity was real, and it was exciting, and you could feel it. It was exactly what Michael Kang spoke of so fondly when we talked last week. “Everything’s amped up in New York, that’s for sure,” Kang said. “(It’s) almost like our fans in New York have more energy for the whole experience than a lot of other places.” Damn right.

This is the kind of event one goes to thinking something big will happen, hoping to come away awestruck. When I asked Kang for an inkling of what might transpire, just a little something they might be thinking of, he simply said “At this point, not really.” Nonchalant and completely honest. After laughing awkwardly, he continued, “but we always seem to find something. If we did have something special planned, I don’t know if I’d be allowed to tell you right now.” At this, he cracked himself right up.

He was a man of his words, in a roundabout way...

There was drama, intrigue, nervous energy, and the eerie, deliberate pumping of the house pipe organ. With the curtain still down and the room dark as pitch, keyboardist Kyle Hollingsworth materialized from the organ house stage right. A single spotlight bounced off his all-white tuxedo as he menacingly banged out the opening notes to what sounded like "Phantom of the Opera."

The main curtain lifted to reveal the rest of the band (Michael Kang: mandolin, fiddle, Bill Nershi: acoustic guitar, Keith Moseley: bass, Michael Travis: drums, percussion) clad in matching white tuxedoes' the Grand Ole Opry kind with the subtle, black double-knit stitching and long coats, looking like an unkempt version of the Jordannaires.

What a way to kick off the festivities. Damn if they weren't happy to be up there. And the people rejoiced. Their band hath risen.

Commencing with two new grooves was a wise move, too. An intense, focused "Cedar Laurels" found the band in top form and just starting to heat up, albeit in a nervously odd key. Jackets were removed, ties loosened, and Nershi rolled his pants up just in time for a very sweet "Dirk." With a swanky funk organ intro that set the body moving, it made a drastic switch to a heavier, progressive mid-section, anchored by Hollingsworth's thunderous key slaps and Travis's deliberate, break-beat drumming.

The jam out of "Dirk" morphed nicely into the Talking Heads "Life During Wartime," an apropos choice these days. Smooth and calculated, "Wartime" could actually become part of "Dirk" someday. It should be noted that String Cheese quoted the venerable New York art-punk band numerous times, across both nights, culminating in an intense and fiery take on the classic "Burning Down the House" on Saturday night. Bassist Keith Moseley chipped in on keyboards for "Burning" index fingers all tapping away at only four keys the whole time essentially leaving David Byrne out of it. The song succeeded in living up to its title with an ultra-loud climax that threatened to blow the roof to Brooklyn.

Saturday had an altogether different feel. String Cheese was feeling all jam-happy after starting with the world-beat mover "Round the Wheel," a stellar show opener. Feeling "Lost" in "Dudley's Kitchen" is a cheeky pun intended but not altogether fair. On its own, this duo didn't amount to much. Taken with the "Wheel" opener to set the tone, "Lost" was played with vigor and somehow formed a seamless improvisation into the high-impact bluegrass of the comfortable "Kitchen." Followed by the hootenanny swing of "Ten Miles To Tulsa" and a great version of "Turn This Around," the first set should have been sealed right there. "Turn" featured a longer-than-usual verse of the Revolver dirge "Dear Prudence." The only notable morsel the rest of the way was Tony Furtado helping out with banjo on a standard "Restless Wind" to close the first set.

Bluegrass is a given with each and every Incident. "Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms" was a perfectly placed example on Friday night. Building on some energy from "Dirk," Nershi hammered away at it, grinding out some flat-pickin' nastiness. The acoustic couplet that opened Saturday's second set, "Elvis' Wild Ride" and "Sittin' on Top of the World," presented an exploratory campfire roundup with a short take on the Animals' "House of the Rising Sun." Furtado was a steely highlight again, this time leading the charges. The jam should have been moved outside to roast some psychedelic marshmallows because this was contemporary jamgrass at its best, rekindling the band's days of yore.

Keith Moseley's loping funkster "My Way" just kept Friday's first set grooving. An even-tempoed furrow was supported by brilliant organ all the way through. A bass and organ showcase, "My Way" was one of Friday's highlights.

"Little Hands" was not enough to support the disastrous "MLT" jam on its own Friday night. But when a spot-on cover of Yes's "Roundabout" drops the hammer on the first set, all ill will is forgotten. I am not a Yes fan, but "Roundabout" is just one of those songs. And, WOW, did they nail it! It's like they were saving up for it. Kang's vocals performed an amazing feat, reaching every last falsetto, trading lines and licks with Hollingsworth, the mad scientist was squeezing effects out of his keys at will. Nershi's great finger-play on those famous acoustic breaks forgave his awful vocals on "Little Hands." The On the Road from this night would be worth it just for the "Roundabout" vocal jam. It's easy to claim a cover as a highlight, but this is an opportunity I refuse to pass up.

Friday's second set augmented this powerful surge upward. The instrumental "County Road," ironically, was the only song played that didn't switch a gear and veer somewhere else. The opening "Born On the Wrong Planet"-> "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" was as good as it looks on paper. A rearranged "Tom Thumb" is slowly becoming their signature New York song. Vamping Dylan seems to suit Nershi quite well. Between the lyric "I'm goin' back to New York City/ I do believe I've had enough" and the Talking Heads' homage each night, SCI was putting on a white-hot NYC press.

The flip side of "County Road" was a trip. Dragging "Jellyfish" out of the ocean of our heads, the audience was afforded some Cheese-y porno funk. Dedicated to Nershi's daughter Arianna, "Jellyfish" is one of the most fun and creative goofball songs String Cheese has in its mighty canon. Humping its way into a fair "Sand Dollar" was fine, but it took a second "Drums" segment to get back to rocking. Unlike the first, this percussion jam, proved slightly better sonically, but the chimes-duel improv between Johnston and Travis also made it a visual treat.

Like an exclamation point coming at the end of a protracted Shakespearean soliloquy, the highly energetic Carib-cruiser "Rollover" punctuated the set. It took way too long to break the surface, but the tune deftly proved to be a great live song. Sunny and breezy, Kang produced smiles and cheers quickly with the tune's first notes. The offbeat second set begged for some bluegrass, and they delivered with a brilliant "Remington Ride" encore.

Saturday's second set was quite a different story following the madness that was "Burning Down the House." With a whacked-out Caribbean disco excursion (complete with mirror ball) the band leaned heavily on the jamming to mellow out. Keller Williams's "Best Feeling" was great. The lyrical imagery makes this one a gem, and has become one of SCI's adopted children. "Feeling" wound its way into Moseley's "Emma's Dream." Closing with a "Miss Brown's Teahouse" was a Grade A prime choice cut. Travis led the crowd in the chorus each and every time, standing up from his stool and pointing with his drum stick. He may not be your everyday bandleader, but the maniac on the kit does know how to get a crowd going. With the third and final Talking Heads tease screaming through in the form of the "Swamp" vocal jam, the Heads once again sliced through and shook the house with seismic pulses.

Lest anyone think String Cheese Incident is untouchable and incapable of flops, I should tell you the weekend was not without its problems. Kang even predicted it a week before, saying “Sometimes it happens at the big shows, sometimes it doesn’t.” This was—in every sense of the word—BIG. And his prophecy could not have been more apt. When it happened this weekend, they were on. But when it didn’t, well, it just didn’t.

A terribly forgettable “MLT” sandwich in the first set Friday was filled with the first-of-two percussion jams featuring Aaron Johnston. What is it with percussion and Radio City Music Hall? Drum jams, in this reporter’s opinion, can be a cheap way to fill some time. It’s a rare occasion when any drummer can make me stand up and watch. It came as a letdown after all the funk. The “MLT” outro was slightly better, but still uninspired, disemboweled, and far too long. Saturday’s explorations were not without their train wrecks, either. I’m convinced the name “Freedom Jazz Dance” is just another name for “Space.” It’s too bad they couldn’t capitalize on all the funk they were coughing up. It came in fits and starts, but ultimately left “Dance” hanging and it came off as an overblown mess of noodling.

At some points it seemed the stage was just too metaphorically big. Kang admitted “It used to actually be that we’d come into New York and get freaked out and play a pretty shitty show.” Although this was very far from “shitty” the collective nerve was no doubt frazzled.

Blasting off Saturday’s second set with a smoking version of the Kang/Barlow “It Is What It Is” after a nasty-ass version of “Burning” was a clear-cut sign that minds were about to be blown. The “Windy Mountain” that followed was the proverbial fly in the salve to treat our billowing brains. It’s hard to pin it all down, but “Mountain” just didn’t work. The vocals were strained and off-key, the tempo slow, and its placement in the middle of the second set was poor. After a mini-acoustic bluegrass showcase with Furtado, a gargantuan City-flavored cover, and a far-out original, “Windy Mountain” crumbled.

Each night was a study in contrasts, and Kang offered his thoughts on why this might be. “A lot more, lately, I think the first sets have been going well. A lot of times we’ll play the first set with a lot more energy. I know in the run we just did...the last Red Rocks show, the first set of the night was a lot of fun, but the last set I think we were definitely a little tired.”

Finally, Nershi’s various jokes and “whoopie doopies” are better when they’re not as frequent. Maybe he was nervous or just trying to fill the dead air as they tuned, but Nershi seemed to grab the mic too often to rile the crowd with inane noises. What was once fun and silly now seems a bit played. And where did the raffle go?

Kang and Hollingsworth are the stars. They get the most time up front soloing, and deservedly so. Both musicians punctuate the set-lists with fearless intensity, daring heights, and concentrated interplay.

Switching from mandolin to fiddle in the middle of a song is no easy feat, yet Kang makes it happen, seemingly, with ease. Quirky effects like steel drums and some wicked wah confound some people into thinking he’s playing a guitar, but Kang fully admits “I’ve never been much of a guitar player, even though I love guitar.” Searing mandolin solos and a hoedown happy fiddle are his trademarks. Nowhere was this more evident than in “Born On the Wrong Planet” and “It Is What It Is” this Incident.

With total command of his keyboard rig, Hollingsworth adds some ass-bouncing shimmy to nearly every song. Even when the song is flat, like the case with “Freedom Jazz Dance,” you can always depend on Kyle to weld some boogie in there. Though I would have liked to hear a “BAM!”, his work on both covers this weekend was more than sufficient.

With the best set of pipes in the band, bassist Keith Moseley is SCI’s best singer. An odd choice, maybe, but take a closer listen; he has total command over that easy-breezy basso-tenor and, more importantly, he knows his limits. Witness “My Way.” He doesn’t try anything fancy. He knows what he can do and has worked at perfecting it. Keeping himself jutted between the drum kit and keyboard cubicle, Moseley is the very portrait of moving and grooving. He was the only one that didn’t change out of his tux Friday. The only time he emerges is to sing. With a Jim Morrison look and a comfortable presence on stage, Moseley was hitting on all cylinders the entire weekend.

Bill Nershi is a better guitar player than most might expect—with a suave delivery and crisp acoustic throughout, he never appears to be giving it his all, yet his fingers do a lot of moving and his rhythm is impeccable. Though his part was short, he made “Roundabout” the rousing success that it was. Credit should also be given to the front-of-house crew because never before has an acoustic guitar been able to rise above a rock band and sound so clean.

Michael Travis was an all-out animal, drumming with wild abandon. His acceptance of Aaron Johnston to trade percussion beats was a nice way to show off some stop-on-a-dime-bag drumming. My distaste for the “Drums” section is not meant as a slam at Travis, because he’s got some of the most unique textures and crashes I’ve ever heard. Watching him catch and ride his own beats is quite a study, listening intensely and moving his body in reaction. He was the band’s engine this weekend, without a doubt.

Scott Caffrey
JamBase | NYC
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