raise your hand if you listened to banjo music last night

I went to a super-awesome Bela Fleck and The Flecktones show last night in Ashland, Wisconsin. It was--by far--one of the most amazing concerts I have been to. If you've never heard of these guys before you have to check them out. I first heard them when I was in high school and Bela played a few banjo tracks for the Dave Matthews Band album Before These Crowded Streets.

They are--to put it simply--masters of their craft. One of them even invented his own instrument. Behold: Future Man! He was dressed like a pirate for the show. He is the band's "drummer" who plays on both a conventional-ish set as well as the Synthaxe Drumitar...this instrument is very hard to describe so I'll just say that you should check out the wikipedia entry on it.

We stayed at Erica's grandma's house. This was my bedroom. It was really...shall we say..."folksy."













The cabinet in the left of the picture housed a dozen creepy little dolls in various poses. Here's "Waving-Half-Open-Eyes-Straw-Hat-Girl."













We ate at the super-classy Hotel Chequamegon (pronounced sheh-WAH-muh-guhn...go figure that one out). It was right on Chequamegon Bay that leads out to Lake Superior. Here's the hotel.












I had the grilled crab cake sandwich. It was amazing.

The concert was held in a giant tent on a snowless ski slope. Very cool. It ended up feeling kind of like a musical revival. I snapped this illegal pic that might give a better idea of what I'm talking about.

Having never seen the Flecktones live all I can say is that these guys are musical gods walking among mere mortals. Bela's banjo playing is genius: he plays it like conversation...just effortless. I'm fairly certain that bass player Victor Wooten has 12 fingers...on each hand. Future Man was...well...Future Man. And the sax player, Jeff Coffin, added just the right touches every now and then on all 4 saxes, flute and penny whistle.

I'm so glad I went to this concert. It. Was. Amazing. My experience with BF and the F-tones solidly joins Dave Matthews/Tim Reynolds acoustic at Luther College (the follow-up concert to their amazing album) and Ben Gibbard at First Avenue as my top 3.