April 2026 Recap

Dirtwire, The Nude Party, Tom Hamilton, Ty Segall, Phish at Sphere, and more!

Phish at Sphere:

4.2 WE Collective at Gluek’s

This week’s Collective was Will, Scotte Yonke, Jon Ross, Brian ‘Snowman’ Powers on sax, and Jon Miller on acoustic guitar. Mike Carina sat in on electric mandolin, and Gauge joined for a few on flute and sax. The setlist included:

Midnight Rider

For What It’s Worth

Cocaine

After Midnight

Melissa

Staying Alive

II

Keep On Moving

Lively Up Yourself

Red Hot Mama

Can’t You See

4.4 Dirtwire at First Avenue

The duo brought their assortment of instruments from all over the world, like a jumbo lutes, fiddles, banjos, and a computer supplying some heavy EDM beats.

4.5 Shotgun Ragtime Band at Driftwood

with Jon Sullivan, Jason Fladager and Jim Hinkley performing the opening set that included:
Girl from the North Country
American Idiot
Simple Twist of Fate

SRB Set I:
Greatest Story Ever Told
Sitting in Limbo
Me and My Uncle
Mexicali Blues
TN Jed

4.11 Jason Dixon Line at Tuttle’s

The band was celebrating 18 years together! Lead singer and guitarist Jason Dixon alternated between classic electric and Flying V guitars. As you might expect from the name of the band, there was a focus on southern, classic rock with one of my favorite bands of all time, The Allman Bros, well represented. The setlist offered a few fun surprises as well:

Fiyo on the Bayou (The Neville Brothers)

Soulshine (Warren Haynes/Allman Bros)

Bad Case of Loving You ( Doctor Doctor) (Rober Palmer)

Crazy (Gnarls Barkley)

Never Tear Us Apart (INXS)

Sweet Emotion (Areosmith)

Blue Sky (Allman Bros)

Let’s Dance (David Bowie)

She Talks to Angels (The Black Crows)

Midnight Rider (Allman Bros.)

End Of The Line (Allman Bros)

4.13 The Nude Party at Turf Club

It was my first time seeimg the North Carolina based quintet and I was only marginally familiar with their sound - The Current has been playing their “Ride On” which more than once had me thinking, “wow I’ve never heard this Lou Reed song before but I really like it!” before looking into it and discovering it’s not Lou Reed at all. There was some surf guitar, some harmonies, and at least one song had an Iggy Pop sound and attitude to it. Also, they brought up the pedal steel guitar player from the opening band, so that was fabulous. Which is all to say these guys were fantastic live and I’d gladly see them again. The show sold out and luckily I got in the door just under the wire!

4.15 Tom Hamilton Band at Turf Club

I was intitally disappointed to hear that Tom Hamilton, who, along with Scott Metzger, who played in town in January with LaMP, plays guitar in Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, was not playing any Grateful Dead songs on this tour. His approach here was instead to focus on his new record, this year’s I’m Your Vampire. I quickly let go of that disappointment when Hamilton and his ace band made up of keyboards, bass, drums, and a backup singer got started. His playing throughout the set went from funky to jazzy to a bit experimental at times, evoking Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine’s wild and mechanical yet precise guitar stylings. Hamilton was last in town with another fomer band of his, the now defunct Ghost Light, that featured Holly Bowling on keys.

The Cure’s “Fascination Street”:

Setlist:

Opening act Nectarous, from Minneapolis:

4.18 EFMI at Sociable Cider Works

An early evening show at the Northeast Cidery! I really appreciate Sociable as a music venue, at least when it isn’t too crowded. I’m looking forward to catching some music outside in their parking lot as they tend to have at least a few big shows over the summer.

EFMI

4.18 Terrapin Stallion at Zhora Darling

I arrived just before the band started with “Diamond Dupree’s Blues”, somehat of a deep cut. Highlights of the night for me were exceleent takes on “Wharf Rat”, “Playing In The Band”, “Viola Lee Blues” and “Eyes Of The World”.

4.20 Ty Segall at First Ave

This was my first Ty Segall experience and I was pretty musch blown away from the get. There were a lot of new songs, not that I would know the difference. I’m familiar enough with his material to know it would be a good show but I didn’t fully comprehend what a fantastic guitar player is. It was blistering, fuzzy, bluesy, phsychedeila for an hour and a half straight. He didn’t play his cover of Hot Chocolate’s “Everyone’s A Winner” that really got me to take notice of him a few years ago, but I didn’t mind at all. It was nice to go in fresh with few preconceptions and be wowed.

Opening band Mod Lang, who set a rocking tone for the evening:

4.24 Shotgun Ragtime Band at Art House Theater

A new and exciting music venue has opened at 3037 Lyndale Ave S, just north of Lake Street. The building was until a few years ago the home of the Huge Improv Theater and more recently the Trichrome Lounge. It is now operated by the owner of the Driftwood Char Bar, and this was the third night of a soft-opening. I really like the room - it has plenty of space, ample room for seating and standing and/or grooving. The walls are at the moment pretty bare and I’m sure there will be improvements to the audio system, so this place has a lot of potential and I look forward to seeing what they do with it.

The band, consisting of core members Phil, Jim, and Kevin and joined by Daryn the High Rev on drums and Jazz on keys, had plenty of space on the larger-than-they’re-accustomed-to stage.

Many of SRB’s regulars from the Grateful Sunday series were in attendance to explore the promisiing new venue, where we heard the following:

Bertha
Loser
Greatest Story Ever Told
Candyman
Black Throated Wind
Women Are Smarter
Foolish Heart >
Feel Like A Stranger

II
Scarlett>
Fire
Ship of Fools
The Other One >
Truckin' >
Drums and Space
Gimme Some Lovin’
Alligator
GDTRFB
Bid You Goodnight

The view from Lyndale:

A moment of “Eyes”:

4.25 The Stretch with TH3 at Driftwood

An outstanding set from The Stretch included:

Something In The Air
Everything's Right
Shakedown Street
Rock and Roll

“Everything’s Right”:

TH3 offered up a dynamite opening set of instrumental funk:

4.30 Phish at Sphere (Night 1 of 3)

Night 1 of the third and final weekend at the most technologically advanced and visually captivating venue on the planet was spectacular!

Phish is the best band in the world, and they continue to give fans so many things to love about them. November will mark 30 years since I first saw them, and they still find new ways to surprise and delight us. Remarkably, they played the nine shows at Sphere without repeating a single song, doing 162 songs over the course of the run, and they still had dozens more they could have called up. (For context, U2 played 40 shows there and performed 39 songs).

Having attended the first show of the 2024 run at Sphere, I had some idea what to expect. I was also at the 8pm screening of The Wizard of Oz the night before, so I was able to acquaint myself with the layout and feel of the building again on Night 0. Like in 2024, I was on the 400 level of the building, requiring several escalators to reach my seat, where the view was just stellar. I happened to secure tickets in the first row of the 400 level, so AG, Shane and I had just about the best view imaginable of the stage and the 64,000 LED panels that make up the interior screen. The scale and sophistication of the venue is simply second-to-none and has to be experienced live to be fully appreciated.

The needle on a larger than life vinyl record on the screen dropped as “The Wedge” began the show and the venue was suddenly awash in color and classic Phish show posters by artist Jim Pollack. Then came some kind of kaleidoscopic robot portal. The graphics throughout the night and the whole weekend were wildly innovative. “Leaves” was a fun one as the graphics were reminiscent of the electric tree in the Mondegreen Secret Set, and all weekend there were little paper leaves from the earlier Wizard of Oz showings beneath many of the seats.

The electrical grid made of a network of robot transformers during “Punch You In The Eye” and the swirling color tornado during “A Wave Of Hope” were visually compelling segments, as was the parking lot at the drive-in theme for the show ending “The Squirming Coil”. Another highlight was “The Sloth”, when Phish’s year-round lighting director Chris Kuroda, aka CK5, was at the helm directing the infinite light show.

Here’s the whole set list:

SET I: The Wedge, NICU, Halfway to the Moon, Leaves, 555, Dirt, Punch You in the Eye, Golgi Apparatus

SET II: A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing > A Wave of Hope > Prince Caspian > Lonely Trip, Runaway Jim, Sneakin’ Sally Thru the Alley, Drift While You’re Sleeping

ENCORE: The Sloth, The Squirming Coil

”Leaves”:

”Punch You In The Eye”:

”Golgi Apparatus”:

2nd Set:

“A Wave Of Hope” (wow!):

The “Prince Caspian” Carwash:

“The Sloth”:

Two more Phish shows at Sphere to kick off May, I will get some words and images about them up here and/or on the Insta well before the May recap goes live early next month.

10 years gone - we love and miss you, Prince!