Billy Strings Welcomes Tony Trischka At The Capitol Theatre

Billy Strings played a show at The Capitol Theatre on Thursday night and welcomed banjoist Tony Trischka for a two-song sit-in at the end of the first set. The concert was part of a four-show run billed as “Deja Tu — Return to the Experiment.”

The billing references the ESP experiments held by the Grateful Dead with Dr. Stanley Krippner at The Cap in 1971 and revived by Strings during a run of crowd-less shows at The Cap in February 2021. An image of an orange feather was shown at the start of the second set. Fans were encouraged to mentally send the image to banjoist Béla Fleck at his home in Nashville.

The first set began with Strings and his bandmates – bassist Royal Masat, mandolinist Jarrod Walker and banjoist Billy Failing– offering the rarely played cover of the bluegrass classic “Honey, You Don’t Know My Mind.” Trischka emerged at the end of the opening set, lending a second banjo to Earl Scruggs’ “Ground Speed.” The first set concluded with Trischka augmenting the traditional favorite “John Hardy.”

The second set began with a pairing of “Bronzeback” and “Secrets.” Strings and Failing then dedicated the subsequent cover of Fleck’s “Slipstream” to the evening’s “receiver.” A 13-minute “Away From the Mire” anchored set two, which later saw a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Dire Wolf.” The night ended with an encore consisting of “If Your Hair’s Too Long, There’s Sin In Your Heart” — featuring a lyric naming the Grateful dead – that waas performed around a single mic and accompanied by just mandolin and guitar.

Strings returns to The Cap tonight for another “Deja Tu — Return to the Experiment” performance. Watch pro-shot and audience-shot videos from Thursday night and stream the entire concert below:

Audio Taped by Keith Litzenberger

Setlist (via Billybase.net)

Set One: Honey, You Don’t Know My Mind, Pyramid Country > Ol’ Slewfoot, Cold On The Shoulder, West Dakota Rose, Love & Regret, Wargasm, Along The Road, Streamlined Cannonball, Groundspeed [1], John Hardy [1]

Set Two: Bronzeback > Secrets, Slipstream > Red Rocking Chair, Pretty Daughter, Love Like Me, Away From The Mire, Long Forgotten Dream, Dire Wolf, Katy Daley

Encore: If Your Hair’s Too Long, There’s Sin In Your Heart

Notes:

[1] with Tony Trischka