The air was cool, the post-rain fog weed smoke hung thick in the air, and an abundance of dready white kids wandered amidst the crowd this past Saturday as they waited for Yonder Mountain String Band to hit the Jannus Live stage. [All photos by Mike Wilson.]

While it’s easy to rib on these hippies, I have my qualms about taking cracks at their choice in music. Sure, "jam bands" might not be everyone’s thing, but there's no denying how impressive it is that a group of musicians can remember and play three to four hours worth of technical, complex music, improvising here and there along the way.

Yonder Mountain String Band presented two sets at about 90 minutes each and was no exception. A drummer-less quartet of banjo, bass (electric and standup), mandolin, and acoustic guitar, YMSB played a slew of bluegrass-tinged originals and some offhand covers that made for one of the most intriguing sets of live music I've seen in recent memory.

What YMSB really has going for them, like many great newgrass acts, is the overall speed and synchronicity with which they can play. Every song, it seemed, was an exercise in rapid finger plucking and dizzying runs of notes up and down each members' respective guitar/mandolin/bass/banjo necks. Banjoist Dave Johnston flubbed a few parts on his solos, but was sporting a cast stretching from his pinky and ring finger up to the elbow on his picking arm, so I think he gets a pass. Playing this music near nightly in his condition is a work of pure, admirable dedication.

This article appears in Feb 3-9, 2011.