One Dawg Night

We went to the David Grisman/Greencards show at the Paramount on Saturday. The 'Cards sounded just great!! I am flipped over the new song "Mucky the Duck". They were an opening act so the set was very short, too short. We went backstage after their set, but the guys were really very busy. They were whizzing back and forth, taking care of various business, so we didn't get to chat much more than "Hi, how are you, I'll be back, I've got to go [somewhere and do something]". So I felt lots of remorse for not being able to attend the Gruene Hall show the night before.

We watched most of the Grisman show from the wings of the stage at the Paramount (thinking the 'Cards might come back and hang a bit), so that is probably going to remain a unique experience for awhile. You cannot even really see or hear the audience at all, and the performers just have stage amplification, so it's kind of like they are in your living room playing -- if your living room is really huge and the band is facing to the side.

I watched some stuff from the wings once before at Kerrville, but that was completely different. People back there were enjoying themselves, hooting, applauding, and socializing behind the stage. This was very different, it was mostly security (and that's important I will concede) and was a very tight ship, hardly any applause form wing-watchers, and they cleared us out right before the end of the show. The 'Cards must have left by then, I'm not sure, and I'm not seeing another Austin show for them on the schedule until the ACL Festival. Can this be??

:::::::I'm depressed:::::::

David Grisman is a legendary mandolin player who is the father of a style of playing called Dawg Music. It isn't bluegrass. I am not that schooled in Dawg Music, but my impressions of it are that it's a combo of Jerry Garcia (who he used to play with under the name Grateful Dawg), Brazil samba, and Django. He is awfully good, but for my tastes I prefer The Greencards' Kym Warner on mandolin. Really and truly.

- Music - Austin - mandolin -