After a successful 2012 filled with many Strangefolk Reunion shows, the original members of the band have announced a four-show run that will take place this September. Reid Genauer, Jon Trafton, Erik Glockler and Luke Smith will play Boston’s Wilbur Theatre on September 25th followed by two shows at Higher Ground in South Burlington, Vermont on September 26th and 27th. The run concludes with a September 29th performance at the State Theatre in Portland, Maine.
Tickets for all four shows will go on sale this Friday.
The members of moe. and Strangefolk have a long history together that dates back to the ’90s, when both bands shared the bill at a number of shows. Last Thanksgiving moe. guitarist Al Schnier opened for the reunited version of Strangefolk at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York. Al wound up sitting in with the band on a pair of songs each night that included moe. originals Moth and Mexico. Strangefolk was invited to perform at moe.’s Snoe.down Festival which is taking place this weekend in Vermont. Last night in Rutland moe. welcomed the Strangefolk Duo of Jon Trafton and Reid Genauer to guest on a two-song segment that brought their first set at Spartan Arena in a close.
[Photo by Jen Bernstein]
For the first song of the two-song guest spot, Genauer led Trafton and moe. through a cover of Up On Cripple Creek by The Band. Genauer and Trafton stuck around for the Mexico first set closer. moe. started the day much earlier with a set at Killington’s Bear Mountain before bringing Saturday’s action to a close with two sets at Spartan Arena that followed Strangefolk’s performance at the same venue.
Here’s audio of Genauer and Trafton collaborating with moe. for Up On Cripple Creek…
Vermont-based ‘zine Good Citizen released a number of CDs in the ’90s featuring original music from artists hailing from the Northeast. In the mid ’90s the publishers of the mag put out ”The Video to the Soundtrack to the ‘Zine” containing a number of performances from their favorite small acts. One of these acts was the then-unknown Burlington band Strangefolk.
Some of these performances have been shared on the GoodCitizenMagazine YouTube channel including a killer version of Reuben’s Place by Strangefolk which was filmed at Burlington’s Club Toast in May of 1995. Take a look at Reid Genauer, Jon Trafton, Erik Glockler and Luke Smith in action…
Back in 1991 guitarists Reid Genauer and Jon Trafton started playing shows together under the moniker “Strange Folk.” They went on to add bassist Erik Glockler and drummer Luke Smith soon there after and changed the name to “Strangefolk.” Last year the original quartet reunited and have performed a handful of shows. For those attending the Assembly of Dust gig at The Independent in San Francisco on March 7th, you’ll have a chance to see the acoustic “Strange Folk” in action as the opening act.
Reid and Jon will open a full evening of music and we’re hopeful Trafton will stick around and guest during AOD’s set. Tickets for this show are currently available.
As the story goes, when Pete Shapiro was gearing up to re-open Capitol Theatre, he reached out to the members of Strangefolk to see if they would reunite to play the legendary venue. The conversation eventually led to the ’90s-jam-favorites getting back together for the first time in 12 years for a series of reunion shows that began with a sold out mini-tour last spring, continued with an appearance at this summer’s Gathering Of The Vibes, and this past weekend with the four-piece act returning to the Port Chester, New York rock hall for the first time since 1998 for a two-night stand.
Over the course of the their four sets, Strangefolk offered up a mix of their “hits” with some deep cuts, sounding every bit as good as they did back their their heyday. Adding to the old-school jamband vibe of the run, was moe. guitarist Al Schnier, who served as the opening act, and sat-in with the band and the end of the first set each night. Al-Folk dipped into moe.’s songbook for collaborative takes on Moth and Mexico, while also tackling Strangefolk’s Gone Fishin’. On Saturday night, in a nod to the venue’s rich musical history, Schnier invited out the members of Strangefolk at the end of his set for a fantastic spot on cover of the Grateful Dead’s Jack Straw, which saw Al and Reid trade off on the verses.
As we mentioned last week, Strangefolk have announced that they will appear at moe’s Snoe.down festival on Saturday, March 24, while the indie-jam act will kick off a short West Coast swing on November 30, with a two-night stand at the Ogden Theatre in Denver.
The Capitol Theatre – Port Chester, NY
Friday, November 23
Set I
Fountain-> Poland, What Goes On, Blue Grey, So Well->Funky Town->So Well, Pawn, Moth (moe. w/ Al Schnier) Lines and Circles
Set II
Furnace, Valhalla, Faces, So Far Gone -> Strange Ranger -> So Far Gone, Woman Child-> Reubens Place-> Sanford and Sons theme-> Reubens Place
E: Roads
Saturday, November 24
Set I
Stout Hearted–> All The Same, Sometimes, Angry At The Sun, Dance, Mexico (moe. w/ Al Schnier), Rather Go Fishin’ (w/ Al Schnier)
Set II
Burned Down, Sinner, Walnut, Alaska, Whatever, Great Long While, Westerly (with Lone Tree lyrics)
E: Cabin John
Here’s LazyLightning55′s incredible vid of Al-folk’s Moth…
While this year’s Strangefolk Reunion gigs aren’t over yet – the band is scheduled to play The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York tonight and tomorrow – the recently reunited group don’t want the good times to end. The organizers of Snoe.down have announced that Strangefolk Reunion will perform at the festival on Saturday, March 24th at Rutland’s Spartan Arena.
[Photo by Wesley Rizzo]
Snoe.down 2013 will take place from March 21st – 24th at Vermont’s Killington Resort and in Rutland. Joining headliners moe. and the just announced Strangefolk Reunion set will be Eastbound Jesus and more acts to be announced later. Guitarist Al Schnier of moe. will open both Strangefolk Reunion gigs at The Cap. Tickets for Snoe.down 2013 are available now through Flynntix.com.
On Friday and Saturday night Strangefolk Reunion featuring the original lineup of the jam stalwarts will make their long-awaited return to The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester for what are the reunited band’s last currently scheduled gigs. Strangefolk, who have a history of performing with moe. dating back to the ’90s, will welcome moe. guitarist Al Schnier as the opening act on both nights.
Tickets are still available for both shows via TicketFly. Current Umphrey’s McGee LD Jefferson Waful will run lights both nights as he did for their performances back in March.
The Strangefolk Reunion continued on Saturday in the band’s home state of Vermont, where the original members of the jam act played Burlington’s Waterfront Park. Videographer Ali Holmes captured the group in action using three cameras and has shared this video of So Well…
The original Strangefolk lineup kept their reunion going on Saturday at Gathering Of The Vibes, a festival the band has been a regular at since the first installment (then dubbed Deadhead Heaven) in 1996. Following four well-received performances in March, Vibes was a fitting place for the original lineup’s first festival gig since 2000.
The 14-song set featured tunes from throughout the original members time together and even included a cover of the Grateful Dead’s Touch of Grey. Both audio and video of Strangefolk’s performance at GOTV have surfaced that we wanted to clue you in on. As far as audio, taper Ted Gadkidis not only recorded the show but he made a sound crispy soundboard matrix that you can download via the Live Music Archive. For a sample, stream Touch of Grey below…
While we wait for the Vibes organization to release pro-shot footage, “Video Mike” filmed the entire set and uploaded it to YouTube. It’s a bit shaky, but we’ll take what we can get…
The original members of Strangefolk reunited back in March for the first time since 2000 to play four Northeast shows and had such a good time they prolonged the reunion for a gig at Gathering Of The Vibes last night and a Burlington performance next month. According to a recap of Strangefolk’s dusk set at the Vibes, guitarist Reid Genauer announced that the reunion will continue at the soon-to-be-reopened Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York over Thanksgiving Weekend.
You might recall that this Strangefolk Reunion was brought on by a call from impresario Pete Shapiro, who will book and operate The Cap along with Bowery Presents. Shapiro was looking to book the original lineup of Reid Genauer, Jon Trafton, Erik Glockler and Luke Smith for his “new” venue and it looks like he finally got his wish. The quartet recently released a past Strangefolk performance at the historic Capitol Theatre recorded on December 27, 1998. Look for an official announcement detailing the dates and ticketing information to surface soon. The Capitol Theatre, which has seen past Thanksgiving Weekend runs by Phish, is expected to open in September.
Knowing that Strangefolk was reuniting for four nights of shows to celebrate their 20th anniversary as a band, I eagerly made plans to attend the entire run of shows. This was the band that I was introduced to in 1996 alongside great friends at Syracuse University and listened to nearly as much as any other band in the past 16 years. Their music has always brought an errant smile to my face, as much now as back when I saw the original quartet of guitarists Jon Trafton and Reid Genauer, bassist Erik Glockler and drummer Luke Smith at Hungry Charlie’s in Syracuse, as well as throughout upstate New York. They were the band that introduced me and many others to the broad genre of jambands, as well the nascent concept of live music. The music was fun, happy, had high danceability and I found it fun to have my hair bounce up and down as I bobbed and weaved doing the funky chicken from side to side. Strangefolk is and will always be my first jam band love.
[Photo Courtesy of Jon Trafton]
Erik Glockler: Last week was great for me in many ways. It was truly awesome to see so many people I hadn’t seen for so long. Many relationships were formed along the way and it was nice to revisit, if only for a short time. I’m always amazed at how strong the community vibe is. I forget that many people all know each other from the past.
But this love was not requited; I loved them, then in 2000 Reid left. I still loved them yet I moved to Florida, well out of their Northeast home base. I came back and they were gone, with Luke having left and a hiatus in effect due to Jon’s cancer diagnosis. I was left with my tapes, discs and the Live Music Archive, I reluctantly dealt with it. In 2007 I caught them at moe.down 8 and although it wasn’t the same four on stage (they had grown to five with Don Scott on keys, plus Luke Patchen Montgomery on guitar and Russ Lawton replacing Luke Smith on drums), the music was the same and I danced throughout the empty pit in the early afternoon sun as though I was back in college.
In 2008 I started making the annual trek out to Boston for the two shows each March and attended with my friend Matt, who had seen them as much as I had during our time in Syracuse and post-college back at home in New England. The annual pair of shows was a shift in step, blending together the old and new perfectly and reigniting my love for this band that started it all. While shows were few in number and spread out over the year, they were that much sweeter and enjoyable. Fewer tour dates continued to make the heart grow fonder.
Jon Trafton: Going to the barn in Vermont for rehearsals was something we did knowing it would set the vibe for the entire reunion run. We’d all been practicing in our own respective woodsheds for months and we’d penciled the first weekend in March as our first rehearsal session but we hadn’t decided where it would take place. Ultimately, the decision to hunker down in our home state of Vermont away from all distractions was a no-brainer. We literally never left the building until it was time to go home.
The Strangefolk reunion tour continued last night at Higher Ground in Burlington, where the band worked through more material from their formative years. Here’s a look at the setlist…
[via @phortin - Encore was actually Things That Fly]
Yesterday we postedLazyLightning55′s spectacular video of the Poland opener that marked the original members return to the stage. Today, LL has uploaded two more clips from Wednesday’s night’s show that we wanted to share. Chasing Away gave the quartet a chance to flex their improvisational muscles. See how that went…
For the first time in nearly 12 years, Strangefolk took to the stage as the original quartet from Burlington, as the quartet hammered out classics such as Valhalla, Speculator and Roads, yet showed no signs of dust on their sound. The Brooklyn Bowl crowd hung on every note, cheered as each song poured out, rewinding the clock on this classic jam band to the late ’90s.
Playing for nearly three hours following weeks of practice at The Barn outside Burlington and the past few days at the soon to be reopened Capitol Theater in Portchester, the two sets gave a nice variety of songs from across their eight years together, although it sounded like they never stopped playing.
While Reid Genauer had Assembly of Dust and Jon Trafton and Erik Glockler continued to tour with a new guitarist (Luke Patchen Montgomery) and drummer (Trey Anastasio Band’s Russ Lawton), the music of Strangefolk has continued to be played, keeping the tunes fresh to a certain extent. Opening up with Poland, the lyrics “I was thinkin’ about my life, thinkin’ where I’ve come; things he might have said, things he might have done” had an air of autobiography for all four musicians, as the loss of Reid in 2000 and Luke in 2004, as well as Jon’s cancer diagnosis in 2005, led them down many different roads on the path to this reunion. It didn’t hurt that the song contains a reference to Brooklyn either. Valhalla elicited cheers, still a fan favorite. First set closer Alaska (not the Phish song) was classicly jammed and extrapolated by Jon and Reid via Erik’s grooves.
Set 1: Poland , Bus Driver, Valhalla, …As, Pawn, Chasing Away, Alaska, Stout Hearted
Set 2: Speculator, All The Same, Oxbow, Elixir, Rather Go Fishin’, I Tell Myself, So Far Gone, Westerly
Last night at Brooklyn Bowl, the original members of Strangefolk played a show together for the first time since 2000. We’ll have a full review from Pete Mason soon, but in the meantime we wanted to share the setlist and a fantastic video of the Poland opener from yesterday’s performance.
Welcome back Pete Mason of Phanart.net, who wrote a fantastic two-part retrospective on Strangefolk for us a year ago, to bring us up-to-date on the reunion of the band’s original members.
Not having played together for the past 12 years, the original members of Strangefolk are hard at work, practicing and playing together where they started, northern Vermont. The band reunites for the first time in 12 years at Brooklyn Bowl on March 28, followed by performances at Higher Ground in Burlington on March 29 and 30 and a trip to The State Theater in Portland, Maine on the 31st.
While the band is fine tuning for the upcoming reunion, guitarist and singer Reid Genauer sat down to talk about the upcoming shows and how the band was warming up for their return to the stage, a first as the original group since September 2000.
Hidden Track: How have the practice sessions been on the lead up to the shows?
Reid Genauer: The rehearsals have been awesome. It was the first time in over a decade that the four of us have been in a room together. We have so many rich memories embedded in the fiber of our songs and they sort of poured out literally in the form of chatter and laughter and metaphorically in the retelling of the songs. There are 52 eHarmony-like variables that I could rate our time together on but the summary is we spent long days banging the rust off our material and had a blast doing it.
HT: Where have you been rehearsing?
RG: We huddled in “The Barn,” Trey’s reclusive studio lair in northern Vermont. It was a great choice on several fronts. For one thing, it’s an amazing space, beautiful, quirky and inspirational. Maybe more to the point, it is in the middle of nowhere so there were no distractions – just us, our instruments and our songs. We literally did not leave the place. We rehearsed 12 hour days, slept there, woke up, caffeinated and did it again. It was special.
