Leveled Ideas

May 12, 2000 Bell's Brewery Kalamazoo, Michigan To break onto the scene in one of Michigan’s biggest cities, Umphrey’s was quite literally saved by the Bell’s. 2000 marked a shift in the band's Mitten market strategy with van trips to two new cities that year, Kalamazoo (8 shows) and Ann Arbor (1 show). A day-trippable 70 miles away from the band's South Bend hub with ~35,000 college students in close proximity, K-Zoo was a desirable new tour stop, especially since the town featured  one of the most successful family-run craft breweries in the nation . Umphrey's played its first Kalamazoo gig at Bell's Brewery in February 2000. That first year, the band split its venue allegiance evenly between Bell's and the eclectic Club Soda . An immediate synergy between band and crowd congealed to help Kalamazoo become one of the most frequented cities during the band's early years. Twenty years later, UM has played 33 total shows in Kalamazoo (the band's 11...

April 22, 2000 Cubby Bear Chicago, Illinois Pardon my inner-Conan bleeding through when I say that Umphreys dominated Chicago like no other in the year 2000. Beginning in January all the way through New Year's Eve, UM canvassed Chitown playing seven different local stages, several multiple times, including the band's first appearances at the iconic Double Door, Park West & Vic Theatre, plus two summer street festivals. The band's twenty total shows within the Second City's limits mark the most in any one year for their chosen "home city." 2000 marked a tidal shift as the band re-anchored its Midwest mooring while nurturing in-roads to the metropoli on the eastern shores. For the first time, South Bend lost the belt for most Umphreys soireès in a given year. Mere weeks before Umph headquarters relocated 70 miles west on the Toll Road (a necessary step for the ambitious quintet-at-the-moment), the most famous ivy walls beckoned. The Cubbies weren...

March 4, 2000  Benchwarmers  South Bend, Indiana Six long months "August" languished on the setlist bench. Twenty-five shows opened and closed without calling on  the multi-dimensional composition . Her GHVIII  album mate "Bob" provided company watching each show from the sidelines. "Bob" was, after all, a "self proclaimed hero."  Handfuls of other Umphreys originals that debuted around the same time as "August" (February 1998) had already met every song's dreaded fate: retirement. Was the band really exiling the emphatic hammer track from its lone studio album? As spring welcomed the new millennium, UM found themselves back on a South Bend stage, home base for a few more weeks before moving on up to Chicago. The gig fell in between multiple weeks on the road, a welcome respite for the group steadily building their reputation as road warriors. A trip to NYC's Wetlands loomed. Few bigger opportunities existed for up and co...

Like a butterfly, the evolution of a song unfolds in stages. A creative spark lights the fuse for the writing and composing process. Recording in a studio commands a diligent effort to get the sound just “right” at that unique time and place. Coaxing a song to walk the plank in a live setting shines a new facet on a song’s growth – the audience’s external influence. As it’s played more frequently, a band massages its new creation, smoothing the flow through each section and tweaking as needed to deliver maximum crowd effect.   So it was with “August,” the closing number on Umphrey’s McGee’s debut album,  Greatest Hits Vol. III . The 8-song offering released in May 1998, long out of print, showcases UM’s earliest songwriting efforts as a 4-piece unit. As a quote-unquote Greatest Hits album, it includes imaginary album titles on which the eight tracks ostensibly were first released, thus conceiving an entire faux catalog for a band barely six months into its existence....

Anchor Drops lowered its boom in the post-Napster, pre-streaming music world of 2004. The 3rd studio offering from Umphrey’s McGee's achieved several milestones. It was Umphreys' 1st release with an established label as the band partnered with SCI Fidelity Records , a label supporting a host of other jam-minded artists. AD was also, significantly, the 1st album recorded with drummer Kris Myers, who began touring with UM in January 2003. The drummer swap reflected the band's first lineup change since 2000, although it was the group's first "subtraction" problem. Ultimately, the crossroads album set the course for the next 17 years of telepathic synergy shared by the sextet. Founding drummer Mike Mirro's decision to pursue medical school once the 2002 New Year's run wrapped left the band in a lurch as to if/how to move forward. Given the intense relationship of creating mind-expanding art together, the news was an existential gut punch. T...