Umphrey's McGee

I caught this band Friday night, November 30, in Columbus, Ohio at the LIfestyles (Promowest) pavilion.

Fantastic musicianship. Six musicians: Two guitarists (both playing lead), bass (frankly, one of the best bassists I've come across); keyboardist, drummer, and percussionist.

At any rate, if you don't know them, they're part of the "jam band" phenomenon. I found their music really engaging because the jams weren't really the kind of meandering jam that such bands often play. They were focused with a clear progressive rock influence and jams where the underlying structure of the improvisation made itself manifest as the instrumental unfolded. I think Rolling Stone had it right when they suggested they were jams "with a destination". At any rate, the sheer quality of the musicianship, including frequent tricky harmony lead playing between the two lead guitarists, makes them worth your consideration. I suppose Phish is the band that jam band afficiandos most often use as a base for comparison nowadays. I found Umphrey's McGee's music to have significantly more substance than Phish's jams -- leaner, funkier, and a bit more cerebral might be a way to describe it.