String Cheese Incident Presents Lunar Landing Conspiracy

After bad weather and logistical issues plagued the beginning of the inaugural Phases Of The Moon Festival in Danville, IL; the music took the spotlight on Friday’s first full day of performances at Kennekuk County Park. The Main Stage activity came to a close last night with two sets from String Cheese Incident including the mysterious “Lunar Landing Conspiracy” performance.

What the Lunar Landing Conspiracy set turned out to be was a collection of moon/space-themed songs performed by String Cheese Incident and a bevy of additional Phases musicians. The Colorado jam act was accompanied by aerialists and fire dancers on stage as stilt walkers and puppeteers manning large-scale puppets roamed through the audience at the beginning of the set according to our friends at The Barn Presents. String Cheese opened up with their take on “Also Sprach Zarathrustra,” aka “2001” and went on to cover many moon/space-themed songs and even performed one of their own.

After “2001,” the band covered “Moon Rocks” by Talking Heads and then welcomed The Mofro Horns for The Neville Brothers’ “Yellow Moon.” JJ Grey and Little Feat/Leftover Salmon keyboardist Bill Payne contributed to a cover of CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising,” while Payne, Vince Herman (Leftover Salmon) and Sunshine Becker (Furthur) helped out on Little Feat’s “Spanish Moon.” The action continued with a version of Peter Rowan’s “Midnight Moonlight” featuring Herman, Payne, Garcia and Andy Thorn (Leftover Salmon).

String Cheese Incident then dusted off their own “Galactic” for the first time since July 5, 2013; which served as the set’s lone original. Drummer Michael Travis handled vocals on a cover of “Walking On The Moon” by The Police that moved into a “Drums” segment and a bit of a jam before a return to “2001.” For the finale, Sunshine Garcia came back out to assist on the Pink Floyd pairing of “Brain Damage” > “Eclipse.”

Phases Of The Moon continues today with performances from Widespread Panic, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Tedeschi Trucks Band and many more.

Watch Friday night’s Lunar Landing Conspiracy:

Here’s the Lunar Landing Conspiracy setlist via The Barn Presents:

Set: 2001 > Moon Rocks* > Yellow Moon**, Bad Moon Rising^, Spanish Moon^^, Midnight Moonlight&, Galactic > Walking On the Moon > Drums > Jam > 2001 > Brain Damage^^^ > Eclipse^^^

* Talking Heads song
** Neville Brothers song (with Mofro horns)
^ Credence Clearwater Revival Song (with JJ Grey, Bill Payne of Little Feat)
^^ Little Feat song (with Vince Herman, Bill Payne, Sunshine Becker)
& Peter Rowan song (with Vince, Bill, Sunshine & Andy Thorn)
^^^ Pink Floyd songs (with Sunshine)