Umphrey’s McGee Covers The Police & Pink Floyd In Pittsburgh

Last night Umphrey’s McGee returned to a city near and dear to their hearts for a performance at Stage AE in Pittsburgh. Not only is bassist Ryan Stasik a product of Steel City, but nearly 15 years to the day earlier an impromptu jam session gave birth to one of the hallmarks of Umphrey’s McGee’s career, “Jimmy Stewart” improvs. On Friday, UM treated yinz to a career-spanning show featuring a handful of intriguing sequences and rarities.

Fifteen years and one day prior Umphrey’s McGee played the wedding of longtime friends Jeremy & Laura Welsh. The band performed a pair of sets at a wedding held inside the Jimmy Stewart Ballroom at the Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel. Around 3 a.m. in the morning the group returned for a now legendary jam session that would lead them to dub the improvisational sections they added to different songs each night as “Jimmy Stewart” thanks to the name of the ballroom.

Friday’s show opened with the instrumental “Nipple Trix” followed by Jake Cinninger’s “40’s Theme.” Umphrey’s then showed off different sides of their musicality by stringing together the stinging “Miami Virtue,” the more blissful “End Of The Road,” the groovy “Attachments” and proggy rocker “Sociable Jimmy.” Later in the set UM continued to show their cover of The Police’s “Driven To Tears” is here to stay with its 14th performance in a little over two years. By contrast, Umphrey’s McGee only covered Police songs “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da,” “Message In A Bottle,” “The Bed’s Too Big Without You” and “Demolition Man” once, while “Miss Gradenko” has turned up six times in the last decade, “Voices Inside My Head” has been missing in action since 2010, “Walking On The Moon” has been played six times in the ’10s and “When The World Is Running Down” hasn’t been performed more than three times in a year since 2004.

The evening’s biggest bust out came next as “Soul Food II” made its first appearance in 49 shows and just eighth of the past ten years. Another surprise finished the first set in the form of obscurity “Kula.” Pittsburgh Umphreaks were treated to a second set filled with beloved songs including “All In Time,” “Hajimemashite” and “Mullet (Over).” The former featured “Dump City” within making for a wild, jam-filled “All In Time” > “Dump City” > “All In Time” sequence. “Booth Love” kicked off the closing stanza and led into UM’s dub version of “Breathe” by Pink Floyd. Umphrey’s McGee ended the night with a “Pay The Snucka” encore, just the third of 2016 following 15 years in heavy rotation. A fun moment came during the encore when Brendan Bayliss reached into the crowd to take hold of a Donald Trump “Make America Great Again” sign that had been altered to read “UM Make America Rage Again”:

Watch Cinninger’s “Pay The Snucka” solo:

Here’s footage of Brendan and Jake going toe-to-toe during “All In Time”:

Setlists (via All Things Umphreys)

Set One: Nipple Trix > 40’s Theme, Miami Virtue > End of the Road > Attachments > Sociable Jimmy, Conduit, Driven to Tears > Soul Food II > Kula

Set Two: Booth Love > Breathe[1] > Hajimemashite, All In Time > Dump City > All In Time, Mullet (Over), Gulf Stream

Encore: Pay the Snucka

[1] dub version