In a scene that would make Will Ferrell proud, the Burlington Free Press reports that roughly 1,600 cowbell-playing revelers lined Church Street in Burlington to form what Ben & Jerry’s claims is the World’s Largest Cowbell Ensemble. The ice cream makers put the event together to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Phish Food and to raise funds for Vermont Flood Recovery through the WaterWheel Foundation. Those assembled rang their cowbells along with four tunes performed by a  band fronted by Phish drummer Jon Fishman, one of which was Blue Oyster Cult’s (Don’t Fear) The Reaper, natch.

[Photo via @benandjerrys]

Lead cowbeller Fishman, sporting a “More Cowbell” t-shirt, was backed by Pork Tornado band mates Aaron Hersey on bass and Phil Abair on keys as well as drummer Russ Lawton of TAB, guitarist Bob Wagner and local singer/songwriter Joshua Panda for takes on Time Has Come Today by The Chambers Brothers, BOC’s (Don’t Fear) The Reaper, Takin’ Care of Business by Bachman-Turner Overdrive and an encore of Hang On Sloopy by The McCoys. Meanwhile, Mike Gordon signed his new Steamroller Wheelies: A Restoration Convoy CD earlier in the afternoon at the scoop shop.

As of press time, the new record hasn’t been made official yet…

Whether the roughly 1,600 cowbell-whappers took part in an official world record remains to be determined, according to Beth Montuori Rowles, executive director of the WaterWheel Foundation. She said Ben & Jerry’s documented the event and will send it on to the Guinness World Record people for their review.

[Burlington Free-Press]

Proceeds from the tickets sold, which included a cowbell and t-shirt, went to WaterWheel.

Watch the World Record Breaking Event Band perform and a local news report…

READ ON

Last night in Oakland, one-time Grateful Dead band mates Bob Weir (guitar) and Bruce Hornsby (piano) each played separate sets and then shared the stage for a joint set and encore at the Fox Theatre. Hornsby kicked off the evening with a solo piano set featuring material from throughout his illustrious career. Weir came on next and mixed songs from the his solo repertoire with Grateful Dead classics. Of particular note was the My Brother Esau opener, a tune Weir played for the first time since 1987 just one week earlier at The Bridge Session.

For the pair’s first-ever set as a duo, they opened up with Chuck Berry’s Too Much Monkey Business – a song Bruce released as a bonus track for Japan on 2009′s Levitate. From there, the two tackled Most of the Time by Bob Dylan – another tune Weir performed at The Bridge Session one week prior. After that came a medley of Grateful Dead compositions featuring Lady With A Fan from Terrapin Station, a verse a piece from Dark Star and The Other One plus Me and My Uncle.

Watch as Weir and Hornsby re-interpret Hell In A Bucket as the lone encore…

Bob Weir and Bruce Hornsby – Hell In A Bucket

Here’s the setlists from both solo sets and the joint set and encore…

Bruce Solo: (8:12 start time) Red Hook Summer>Sticks and Stones, Heir Gordon, Preacher in the Ring, Where’s the Bat?, Continents Drift, Valley Road, 20-20 Vision and I’m Walking Round Blind>A Night on the Town (9:06 end time)

Weir solo: (9:11 start time) My Brother Esau, The Music Never Stopped > KC Moan, When I Paint My Masterpiece, Peggy-O > Big Bad Blues > Ashes & Glass, Easy to Slip, Black Throated Wind>Cassidy, Sugar Magnolia (10:27 end time)

Joint Set:
(10:29 start time) Too Much Monkey Business, Most of the Time, Lady With A Fan >Dark Star v1>Other One v1>Me And My Uncle (11:10)

Joint Encore: Hell in a Bucket

[via Chez - Ratdog.org]

The pair team up for another “Alone and Together” performance tonight at the Fox.

Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band have been getting their sea legs under them as The Boss’s world tour starts to heat up. Last night in Philly at the first of two Wachovia Center performances, Springsteen showed why his fans always circle Philadelphia dates when his tour schedule comes out by offering a bustout and finding a new way to interact with his audience.

[via @tigrs99]

In the middle of The Boss’s lengthy set, Springsteen and the E Street Band lit into the extremely rare Seaside Bar Song and even detailed the origins of the tune from 1973 which was recorded for The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle but went unreleased until 1999′s Tracks compilation. Later in the night the New Jersey native dedicated American Skin (41 Shots) to Trayvon Martin.

We Take Care of Our Own, Wrecking Ball, Badlands, Death to My Hometown, My City of Ruins, Seaside Bar Song, Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?, Jack of All Trades, Atlantic City, Easy Money, She’s the One, Waitin’ on a Sunny Day, The Promised Land, Apollo Medley, American Skin (41 Shots), Lonesome Day, The Rising, We Are Alive, Thunder Road

Encore: Rocky Ground (with Michelle Moore), Land of Hope and Dreams, Born to Run, Dancing in the Dark, Raise Your Hand, Tenth Avenue Freeze-out

A memorable moment took place during the six-song encore, when Springsteen strode off the stage and into the crowd in Raise Your Hand. Bruce kept the tune going as he shook hands and high-fived audience members. At one point he took a seat and a quick-thinking fan handed him a beer. The Boss was happy to oblige. Take a look…

READ ON

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.

[via Strangefolk Reunion]

Thanks to LazyLightning55 for this incredible clip of Poland…

Strangefolk – Poland

Here’s the setlist from last night’s show…

Set 1: Poland , Bus Driver, Valhalla, …As, Pawn, Chasing Away, Alaska, Stout Hearted

Set 2: Speculator, All The Same, Oxbow, Elixir, Fishin, I Tell Myself, So Far Gone, Westerly

Encore: Roads

[via Strangefolk Reunion]

The reunion tour continues tonight at Higher Ground in Vermont.

The Allman Brothers Band’s annual March Madness run closed on an unfortunate note last night as the group wound up performing without an Allman on stage at the Beacon Theatre. Founding member Gregg Allman left the stage in the middle of the second set on Saturday night and did not return. However the band didn’t let Allman’s injury stop them, providing fans a guest-heavy marathon finale. According to the group’s website, “Gregg Allman has bulging discs in his back that are normally under control. Last night (Saturday), he had a painful flare up 30 minutes before the end of the second set at the Beacon, which forced him to leave the stage.” Gregg Allman and Friends keyboardist Bruce Katz filled in for Gregg, whose absence was noted by Warren Haynes at the start of the show.

TMZ.com reported that Allman was briefly hospitalized on Saturday. Yet last night’s show went on as planned and the band made the best of the situation, with musical director Warren Haynes calling in a bevy of talented friends and singing many of Gregg’s vocal parts. Warren Haynes Band members Ron Johnson and Alicia Chakour helped out on River’s Gonna Rise in the first set. ABB family member Jimmy Hall came out for Statesboro Blues and She Caught The Katy during the opening stanza, while original bassist Berry Oakley’s son, Berry Oakley Jr., also sat in on Statesboro.

The guest appearances came at a fast and furious pace in the second set. Chakour and Johnson returned for the Soulshine opener. All three ABB drummers sat Soulshine out as Anton Fig of David Letterman’s house band stepped behind Butch Trucks’ kit. Later, for a take on Bob Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower, the group was augmented by trumpeter Maurice Brown. Then, Col. Bruce Hampton and guitarist Oz Noy lent a hand on Spoonful. John Popper – who performed with the band on Saturday night as well – made another appearance on covers of Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad? and That’s What Love Will Make You Do as well as Blues Traveler’s Alone. This marked the ABB’s first-ever performance of the classic Traveler tune.

Set One: Blue Sky, Every Hungry Woman, Gamblers’s Roll, Les Brers, Statesboro Blues w/ Jimmy Hall and Berry Oakley Jr on bass, She Caught The Katy w/ Jimmy Hall, River’s Gonna Rise w/Ron Johnson and Alicia Chakour, Jessica

Set Two: Soulshine w/Alicia Chakour, Anton Fig and Ron Johnson w/o Marc Quinones and Jaimoe, Hotlanta, All Along The Watchtower w/ Maurice Brown on trumpet > Don’t Want You No More, Spoonful w/Col. Bruce Hampton and Oz Noy, Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad? > Alone w/John Popper, That’s What Love Will Make You Do W/John Popper, Maurice Brown, Jay Collins and Jimmy Hall, Dreams, Mountain Jam > Smokestack Lightning w/ Hook Herrera > Dazed and Confused > Mountain Jam

Encore: Soul Serenade > You Don’t Love Me w/ Herrera, Oakley Jr. and Junior Mack

[via AllmanBrothersBand.com and M. Matlick]

Last night’s marathon performance also featured a lengthy Mountain Jam that ventured into Smokestack Lightning (with Hook Herrera on harmonica) and Dazed and Confused before it was through. All in all, this marked the only show of the run without an acoustic segment.

In other ABB-related news, the lineup for the first annual Peach Music Festival, a three-day event set for August 10 – 12 in Scranton, Penn. is set to be announced at noon ET.

Months in the making, last night Grateful Dead/Furthur guitarist Bob Weir performed with members of The National, Yellowbirds and other Brooklyn-based musicians as part of a free live webcast called The Bridge Session put together by HeadCount and held at TRI Studios. The 10-person ensemble performed two sets that included plenty of Grateful Dead classics, a pair of The National’s songs and even a few choice covers. Of particular note was the first version of Weir’s My Brother Esau sung by Bobby since the Grateful Dead last played the Barlow/Weir chestnut on October 3, 1987 at Shoreline as well as takes on Bob Dylan’s Most of the Time and Cass McComb’s Love Thine Enemy.

[Sing-a-long Encore via Maxwell_Goldman]

Joining Weir in the indie-meets-jam all-star troupe were Aaron Dessner, Bryan Devendorf and Scott Devendorf of The National, Josh Kaufman and Sam Cohen of Yellowbirds, Walt Martin from The Walkmen, Conrad Doucette of Takka Takka, and National contributors Thomas Bartlett and Kyle Resnick. Bobby told Yahoo! Music that, “I was surprised by how many instruments in the ensemble we could get music out of. Usually that many instruments in an ensemble and everybody’s playing all the time it gets to be too thick … but these guys are good at leaving room for music to happen. And it did I thought.” Scott Devendorf told Rolling Stone he was really happy with the way it turned out, “For us, the night definitely exceeded expectations. We were surprised that it was even going to happen in the first place, and then as we were rehearsing it became more and more real.”

Encore Sing-a-long

Here’s the setlist from The Bridge Session…

Set 1: Help on the Way, Love Thine Enemy (Cass McCombs), Looks Like Rain, El Paso, Friend of the Devil, Cassidy, Daughters of the SoHo Riots (The National), My Brother Esau

Set 2: Me and My Uncle, Fake Empire (The National), Most of the Time (Bob Dylan), Brown Eyed Women, The Other One, Standing on the Moon, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider

Encore: Ripple*, Uncle John’s Band*, Brokedown Palace*

* Before Ripple – “You’re gonna love this, or you’re gonna hate it — but we’re gonna do it.”
Bob and band form circle within the crowd and play Ripple, Uncle John’s Band, Brokedown Palace!

[via Ratdog.org]

The setbreak featured a roundtable discussion using questions from audience members both in-person and via social networks moderated by HeadCount’s Andy Bernstein. HeadCount’s other co-founder, Disco Biscuits bassist Marc Brownstein, emceed the event. For the final three songs of the evening, Weir and the band formed a circle within the crowd and welcomed audience members to help out on Ripple, Uncle John’s Band and Brokedown Palace.

The Bridge Session – My Brother Esau

Today marks the first day of Jam In The Dam 2012 at the Melkweg in Amsterdam. Earlier this afternoon we posted Joshua Bogen’s Jam In The Dam Diary about his arrival in Holland and last night’s pre-party. We expect to have his journal entry and Jon Derow’s photos from Day One up tomorrow, but in the mean time we wanted to fill our readers in on Mike Gordon’s first set of 2012.

[via @Mike_Gordon]

According to our friend Jen Bernstein of Nycjamgal Live Music, Cactus and his five-piece band played a 90-minute set that included the group’s first-ever cover of Jim Croce’s You Don’t Mess Around With Jim, the title track from the late singer-songwriter’s top-selling 1972 album. Cover-wise, the quintet also tackled Little Feat’s Sailin’ Shoes, Emotional Railroad from guitarist Scott Murawski’s band Max Creek, Meat by Phish, War’s River Niger and The Band’s version of Don’t Do It. Mike also dipped into his solo repertoire for Horizon Line, Voices, Dig Further Down and Idea.

Set: Horizon Line > Voices, Sailin’ Shoes, Emotional Railroad, Meat, You Don’t Mess Around With Jim*, Dig Further Down, Don’t Do It, River Niger, Idea

* – First Time Played (Jim Croce)

[via Jen Bernstein]

Here’s a clip of the Mike Gordon debut of You Don’t Mess With Jim thanks to JB…

Mike Gordon – You Don’t Mess Around With Jim

And here’s Idea…

Mike Gordon – Idea

There were two big news stories out of the Allman Brothers Band camp last night as the iconic rockers kicked off their annual March Madness run at the Beacon Theatre in New York City and it was also revealed that the group will team up with Live Nation to throw a three-day music festival at Montage Mountain in Scranton, Pennsylvania called The Peach Music Festival.

Allman Brothers Band – Come On In My Kitchen

For the first of ten shows at the Beacon, the Allman Brothers Band came out strong by opening with their first live version of the Rodgers/Hammerstein show tune My Favorite Things. A longtime staple of the Derek Trucks Band and a tune the Brothers covered in 1971 as part of the sessions that led to the famed Gatlinburg Tapes, the Allman’s version of My Favorite Things was loosely based on John Coltrane’s cover. From there, the Allmans offered a rare post-Dickey take on Blue Sky sung by Gregg Allman. The rest of the first set focused on covers such as Dr. John’s I Walk On Guilded Splinters and Little Milton’s That’s What Love Will Make You Do and classic ABB compositions Midnight Rider and Kind of Blue. The second set started out with a four song acoustic segment that featured the band’s first-ever cover of Neil Young’s Needle and the Damage Done as well as a take on Come On In My Kitchen that showed off bassist Oteil Burbridge’s banjo skills. Four hard-rocking electric tunes followed the unplugged interlude before You Don’t Love Me served as the first encore of the run.

Set One: My Favorite Things > Blue Sky, Trouble No More, Gilded Splinters, Worried Down With The Blues, Midnight Rider, That’s What Love Will Make You Do, Kind Of Bird

Set Two: Acoustic – Needle and the Damage Done, Come On In My Kitchen, Soulshine, These Days | Electric – Rocking Horse, Black-Hearted Woman, Same Thing, Jessica

Encore: You Don’t Love Me

[via AllmanBrothersBand.com Forums]

The Peach Music Festival will be held in Scranton on August 10 – 12. The full lineup will be announced on Monday, March 26 at Noon ET. Keep your eyes on the event’s website for more details.

UPDATE: Watch Gregg Allman sing Needle and the Damage Done during the Allman Brothers Band’s acoustic segment that kicked off set two of the March Madness opener…

READ ON

The King of Limbs World Tour continued last night at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Florida, where Radiohead mixed it up a bit by performing six songs which weren’t played at the tour opener in Miami on Monday night. Little By Little, Pyramid Song, Street Spirit, Myxomatosis, All I Need and Everything In Its Right Place all saw action last night.

[via @LeoMalaFama]

On the other side of things, Kid A, The National Anthem, Codex, The Gloaming, Airbag, Cut A Hole and You And Whose Army all were performed in Miami but not in Tampa. Thom Yorke introduced the unreleased KoL era track The Daily Mail by saying, “This one is for the bankers who think it’s OK to make money off other people’s despair.”

Radiohead – Pyramid Song

Here’s the full setlist…

Set: Bloom, Little By Little, Staircase, Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, Morning Mr Magpie, Meeting In The Aisle, Pyramid Song, Nude, Identikit, Lotus Flower, There There, Feral, Idioteque, The Daily Mail, Bodysnatchers, Reckoner

Encore: Separator, All I Need, Myxomatosis, True Love Waits/Everything In Its Right Place

Encore2: Give up The Ghost, Karma Police, Street Spirit [fade out]

[via AtEaseWeb.com]

Next up for Radiohead is a show at Philips Arena in Atlanta this evening.

Radiohead kicked off their World Tour tonight at the American Airlines Arena, where the band debuted songs both old and new in front of a capacity crowd. Augmented by drummer Clive Deamer, the Brits unveiled two brand new songs – Identikit and Cut a Hole. Meeting In The Aisle, an instrumental first released on the Airbag / How Am I Driving? EP in 1998, saw its live debut this evening.

[via @ChrisDuqueV]

Front man Thom Yorke mentioned that “every night is going to be different” late in the show, giving fans hope that this tour’s setlists will vary even more so than in the past.

Here’s the complete setlist via @radioheadlive…

Set: Bloom, The Daily Mail, Morning Mr. Magpie, Staircase, The National Anthem, Meeting In the Aisle, Kid A, The Gloaming, Codex, You and Whose Army?, Nude, Identikit, Lotus Flower, There There, Feral, Idioteque, Seperator

Encore 1: Airbag, Bodysnatchers, Cut a Hole*, Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
Encore 2: Give Up The Ghost, Reckoner, Karma Police

* – w/ Clive Deamer on Piano

The tour continues on Wednesday night at the St. Pete Times Arena in Tampa, Florida.

Plenty of videos have already surfaced of the tour opener. Here’s a few good ones…

READ ON

Sweetwater Music Hall, a new venue for which Bob Weir is a partner, had its official opening last night in the Bay Area’s Mill Valley. The same Ratdog ensemble that performed at TRI Studios on Wednesday were on hand at Sweetwater for two more sets. Bay Area residents Sammy Hagar (Van Halen) and Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads) both sat in with Ratdog at different points during the show.

[Photo via @RatDogDotOrg]

Ratdog didn’t repeat any songs from Thursday’s webcast with the exception of the group’s traditional improv-based Stuff segment. Surprisingly, Ratdog stayed away from their originals all night long. Hagar emerged towards the end of the first set to sing Loose Lucy, a song he’s sung with members of The Dead a number of times in the past. Harrison came out during the second set to add backing vocals and keys to Take Me To The River, an Al Green song that was a staple of the Talking Heads’ live repertoire.

Set One: Jam > Truckin > Brown-Eyed Women, Loser, Loose Lucy*, Let It Grow

Set Two: When I Paint My Masterpiece@, Deep Elem Blues@, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall@, Take Me to the River+, Playin in the Band > The Other One > Stuff > Jam, Standing on the Moon, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider
*-with Sammy Hagar (Vocals); +-w/ Jerry Harrison (Keys, Backup Vox)

[via Ratdog.org]

Marin County’s latest venue replaces the original Sweetwater which closed in 2007. Weir discussed how Sweetwater came together with Benjy Eisen for a Rolling Stone feature.

Tonight, HT faves Phish return to Madison Square Garden for their traditional New Year’s Eve performance. This marks the group’s sixth NYE show at “The World’s Greatest Arena.”

The New Year’s Gag

A Pay-Per-View webcast of tonight’s show is available through LivePhish.com.

We’re trying something different this run. In addition to our at-a-glance recap of the show we call The Skinny and the setlist, we’re also presenting a Live Blog with the help of our friends at Next Jam. We’ll compile tweets from @YEMblog along with screenshots and other interesting notes. You can find our Live Blog after the jump.

Setlist:

[via Phish.net]

Check out our Live Blog and The Skinny from MSG…

READ ON

We’re nearing the home stretch of Phish’s New Year’s Run at Madison Square Garden. This evening, the quartet took the stage for the third of four NYE Run performances.

[Photo by Michael Stein]

A Pay-Per-View webcast of tonight’s show is available through LivePhish.com.

We’re trying something different this run. In addition to our at-a-glance recap of the show we call The Skinny and the setlist, we’re also presenting a Live Blog with the help of our friends at Next Jam. We’ll compile tweets from @YEMblog and @Bizarchive along with screenshots and other interesting notes. You can find our Live Blog after the jump.

Setlist:

Set 1: Punch You In the Eye > Prince Caspian^[1] > Backwards Down the Number Line, Nellie Kane,Divided Sky, Sand, Vultures, Rift, Joy, Quinn the Eskimo

Set 2: Wilson > Axilla > Piper > Twist > Julius > Golgi Apparatus > Also Sprach Zarathustra, The Horse > Silent in the Morning, David Bowie^[2], The Squirming Coil

Encore: Boogie On Reggae Woman, Good Times Bad Times

[1] Unfinished.
[2] Silent In the Morning teases.

[via Phish.net]

Check out our Live Blog and The Skinny from MSG…

READ ON

Tonight marks Night Two of Phish’s traditional New Year’s Run, which takes place at Madison Square Garden in New York City this year. The group got off to a rousing start last night and hopefully they’ll offer more of the same this evening.

[Photo by Michael Stein]

A Pay-Per-View webcast of tonight’s show is available through LivePhish.com.

We’re trying something different this run. In addition to our at-a-glance recap of the show we call The Skinny and the setlist, we’re also presenting a Live Blog with the help of our friends at Next Jam. We’ll compile tweets from @YEMblog and @Bizarchive along with screenshots and other interesting notes. You can find our Live Blog after the jump.

Setlist:

Set 1: The Sloth, You Enjoy Myself, Back on the Train, The Moma Dance, Funky Bitch, Maze, Roses Are Free, Halley’s Comet > Run Like an Antelope

Set 2: Crosseyed and Painless > Simple > Lifeboy, Guyute, Mike’s Song > Chalk Dust Torture^[1] -> I Am Hydrogen > Weekapaug Groove, Show of Life > Character Zero

Encore: Loving Cup

[1] Unfinished

[via Phish.net]

Check out our Live Blog and The Skinny from MSG…

READ ON

After a layoff of nearly four months, Phish returned to the stage tonight for the first of four shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City that make up the group’s annual New Year’s Run. This evening’s performance marked the 20th Phish show at the storied venue.

Pay-Per-View webcasts of all four shows are available through LivePhish.com.

We’re trying something different this run. In addition to our at-a-glance recap of the show we call The Skinny and the setlist, we’re also presenting a Live Blog with the help of our friends at Next Jam. We’ll compile tweets from @YEMblog and @Bizarchive along with screenshots and other interesting notes. You can find our Live Blog after the jump.

Setlist:

Set 1: Free, Glide > Possum, Cities, The Ballad of Curtis Loew, Stash, Contact > Sample in a Jar, Kill Devil Falls > Bathtub Gin

Set 2: Birds of a Feather, Carini -> Tweezer^[1] > My Friend, My Friend^[2] -> Rock and Roll^[3] -> NICU,Bouncing Around the Room, Harry Hood > Bug

Encore: Tube > Rocky Top > Tweezer Reprise

[1] Streets of Cairo tease.
[2] No “Myfe” ending.
[3] Birds of a Feather jam.

Notes: This performance featured the first ever Free show opener. Tweezer contained a Streets of Cairo tease. My Friend omitted the “Myfe” ending. Rock & Roll contained a Birds of a Feather jam.

[via Phish.net]

Check out our Live Blog and The Skinny from MSG…

READ ON