Sunday, August 22, 2010

Great American Taxi with Todd Snider @ Hoxeyville.

I have good friends who have an Americana band here in Kalamazoo called Ninth Street Bridge and they told me a while back that they were confirmed to play the Hoxeyville music festival up in Wellston Michigan Saturday August 21st. At first i wasn't too interested in going and only would consider it if i could line up a photo pass and after sending the request too late i could not get one. Then on Friday i found out that i could still bring a camera and get pretty close to the stage without a pass and the line up on Saturday was interesting enough so Brett was able to get me in at the last minute and i got a ride up with their new part time drummer Tommy Ufkes. Ninth Street Bridge played for about an hour on the smaller third stage to a small crowd but they sounded great.
After the show we walked around and checked out the other stages. Todd Snider was on stage when we arrived so i missed his show on the main stage and i also missed Kalamazoo's own Greensky Bluegrass while Ninth Street was playing but i knew we would catch up with some of the Greensky guys later that night to do some pickin at Dave Bruzza's campsite.
Colorado's Great American Taxi was on the second stage and i was able to catch that whole show with Todd Snider sharing the stage with them. Great American Taxi is a name i knew because i saw them at the Musicfest in Steamboat Springs Colorado last January and i knew they often act as Todd's backing band. I was able to walk right up to the front of the stage and also backstage near the end of the show to talk to Todd.
Great American Taxi is a very talented group of musicians led by vocalist and mandolin player Vince Herman who is one of the founding members of the Colorado jam band Leftover Salmon and they have a sound that reminds me of the Grateful Dead but with more of a bluegrass based sound that can adapt to almost any genre within the wide open space of Americana music and with Todd Snider sitting in you are guaranteed a great time. Great American Taxi released a critically acclaimed album called "Reckless Habits" a few months back and its been well received in Americana music circles and Todd Snider has had his album "The Excitement Plan" out for about a year now and he has such a huge catalog of music to dig into and his anecdotes between songs are almost as entertaining as his songs. Later in the set Paul Hoffman and Dave Bruzza (who was wearing a gorilla suit) of Greensky Bluegrass joined in on mandolin and Dobro. Click here to view more photos from part of Saturdays shows. Click here for more photos i shot in black & white. (C) copyright Jeff Dykhuis.

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