God Street Wednesdays: God Street Russo @ Vibes ’11

In between God Street Wine’s two reunions members of the band played a number of shows together with the exception of drummer Tom “Tomo” Osander who lives in Europe. Most performances featured guitarists Aaron Maxwell and Lo Faber while a handful also included bassist Dan Pifer and keyboardist Jon Bevo. When the foursome and old pal Jason Crosby teamed up to play Vibes in 2011 they had a secret weapon behind the kit to add firepower to the end of the set – Joe Russo.

[Backstage Photo by Michael Weiss]

Russo was at the festival with headliners Furthur and didn’t have much prep time with the band before starting his guest spot. In fact, when they got together with Joe before the show, it was the first time most of the members of GSW had met him. Thankfully Russo was familiar with God Street Wine even responding something along the lines of “it’s cool dude, I have Bag [God Street’s debut album]” to a query from Faber about his familiarity with a section of certain song. From the moment God Street Russo took the stage it was clear this was a good fit. “I remember feeling a collective nod from the guys when Joe hit that drum fill on the intro of Fortress of Solitude. I also remember looking back at Joe during Waiting for the Tide, and he was singing the Whoa, whoa, whoa…behind the kit. If I knew, I would have set up a mic for him!” GSW stage manager Michael Weiss told us.

Recently the Gathering of the Vibes YouTube channel was updated with a pair of videos from the performance. Check out Fortress of Solitude and Hammer & Spike…