August 2025 Recap

With Oasis, Neil Young, Billy Strings, String Cheese Incident, and more!

Sep 05, 2025

Liam on the screen at Soldier Field 8.28.25

8.1 Mossonello at Tuttle’s

Mike Corcoran’s band for the first time ventured out beyond the realm of Mike’s original compositions to include some Jerry Garcia songs on what would have been Jerry’s 83rd birthday. The patio was hopping and the band sounded great.

8.2 Obi Original and the Black Atlantics at Open Streets NE

An engaging and enthusiastic performer, Obi Original and his band the Black Atlantics play Nigerian highlife music and were part of a free street festival. I’ve seen this band a few times now and their sound continues to captivate me!

8.2 Saltydog at Nershfest at 56 Brewing

8.4 Demitri Rallis and The Moment Makers at Driftwood

The first in the series of Mondays in August featured local jam scene veterans Jason Fladager and Jimmy Rogers of God Johnson and Mark “Munchie’ Collins on drums. D and JFlad traded complimentary guitar riffs and locked into some solid grooves as Jimmy Rogers laid down basslines on either standard or upright bass. The event was advertised as completely improvisational, so no one knew what shape the jams would take. They really hit their stride in the second set and though this particular combination of musicians may not have played together before, they are all clearly excellent listeners and knew when to take the lead to move a jam forward.

8.8 Dr. Mambo’s Combo at Hook and Ladder Theater

‘The Combo’ is a Minneapolis institution, known for holding down Sunday nights at Bunker’s since 1987. Tonight they were paying tribute to two funk and soul legends - Sly Stone and Chaka Khan. They did a tremendous job honoring the two influential artists, playing outside in the heat but in the shade, under the canopy.

8.9 Billy Strings at Target Center

Another astounding show from the one and only Billy Strings! Man, this guy is the genuine article. I love his voice, his songwriting, his attitude, and his his skill on the guitar is just out of this world. His trajectory is also something to admire. 8 days prior to this show, Billy Strings opened for Dead and Co in Golden Gate Park in front of 60,000 people before joining the band for “Wharf Rat”. Being chosen as one of three support acts for the historic 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead (along with Sturgill Simpson and Trey Anastasio) says a lot about Billy Strings’ status. Hard to believe that it was just 2021 when I saw him for the first time, at The Palace Theatre with 2600 other fans. Then his next show in town was Surly Field at 5,000, then to the 8,0000 capacity Armory, and from there another insane jump to Target Center, holding around 20,000 people. His ascent and takeover of the bluegrass/jamgrass scene is now complete. I’m still a bit gobsmacked when one of his newer singles, rom last year’s “Highway Prayers” album, “Leadfoot” or “Gild The Lily” is played on 89.3 The Current, as though it signifies some breakthrough not only of this artist in particular but his brand of psychedelic bluegrass and the jam scene more broadly. This was evident in the many children present with their hip, hip parents. I imagine it was the first show ever for many of them, and it’ll be memorable!

His last couple albums have shown his ability to create thoughtful and catchy songs and the relatively recent addition of Alex Hargreaves on fiddle brought the band to the next level. The rest of the band - upright bass, mandolin, and particularly the banjo player are amazing. They rolled together in unison like train wheels on some mythical train track in a Billy Strings song.

Certainly a highlight was “Tangled Up In Blue” early in the first set that led into “All Fall Down”, a John Hartford cover that went into outer space and gave the new lighting director who was just brought on from STS9 a chance to go wild. While Billy did not acknowledge the 30th anniversary of the passing of Jerry Garcia, “Tangled Up In Blue'“ was a favorite of Jerry, so that’ll do.

“Summertime” was also fantastic, starting out with just Billy who was seated on the stage before being joined by the band. I also appreciated his earnest and heartfelt solo a cappella interlude. “Red Daisy” and JJ Cale’s “Ride Me High” were also outstanding. I can safely say that this was my favorite Billy show to date and he continues to raise the bar!

8.15 String Cheese Incident with Del McCoury Band at The Pines Music Park

This two day ’Campout’ in Eau Claire, WI kicked off with legendary bluegrass artist Del McCoury and his band, featuring his sons Ronnie on mandolin and Rob on banjo. Del, now 86 years old, plays acoustic guitar and his band is rounded out by upright bass and fiddle. The Pines was a beautiful and spacious setting for this event, with attendance capped at 3000 so there was plenty of space in a venue that routinely draws around 5000 to the outstanding, annual Blue Ox Music Festival.

After Del’s set of traditional bluegrass was delayed for about an hour due to nearby lightning, String Cheese Incident delivered one long set of their trademark bouncy grooves with no setbreak until the amplified music curfew of 11pm. They brought Del and sons out for bluegrass standards “Sitting on Top of the World” and “Shenandoah Breakdown” and you could sense the mutual respect from SCI guitarist Bill Nershi and Del.

Other highlights of Night 1 were a well executed “Tore Up Over You”, and foreshadowing the next night’s Feed The Talking Dog set, “Naive Melody”. Live staple “Texas” stretched to 20 minutes before concluding the main set and Bob Dylan’s “Quinn The Eskimo” appeared in the encore.

The late night set that followed from The Travelin’ McCourys (The Del McCoury Band without the octogenarian) made for a fun night cap.

SCI with Del and Sons:

SCI:

And late night with The Travelin’ McCourys:

8.16 String Cheese Incident with STS9 at The Pines Music Park

It’d been ages since I’d seen Sound Tribe Sector 9, one of the earliest and most consistent bearers of trancey, synth laden jam funk. They put on a fun set but several people remarked that it felt odd to see this band during the daylight hours. They also played a generous soundcheck that was essentially a full set in the mid afternoon.

Cheese’s first set kicked off with a 15 minute “Rollover”, what to me is the quintessential String Cheese song. Multi-instrumentalist Michael Kang wrote and sings this one, and played electric guitar, as opposed to mandolin or fiddle. It features different movements and veers into EDM territory as many SCI jams do.

Second set’s highlights for me were the bassist Keith Moseley sung “Joyful Sound” and a funky “Let’s Go Outside” with Nershi switching to electric guitar from his standard acoustic.

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen SCI, probably a couple dozen. I do know I was a fan last century, even before seeing them open for Phil Lesh and Friends at Somerset in 2001 (Big Wu was also on the bill!). I do know that this weekend was one of my favorite Incidents ever, right up there with an especially intimate two night run at Skyway Theatre in 2015.

The band asked the crowd whether this event should happen again and was met with an uproariously positive response. The Pines sent out a survey asking the same question a few days later - I’m guessing they’ll get a lot more positive responses and we’ll be seeing Cheese in Wisconsin again next summer!

STS9:

Big Fun Circus Fire Performance between bands in the back of the festival bowl:

SCI:

8.17 Charlie Parr and Mikkel Beckmen at 331 Club

Washboard player extraordinaire Mikkel Beckmen plays every Sunday at the 331 Club from 3-5pm, often with guests. He mentioned that this was the sixth of eight weeks with a guitar player and today one of Minnesota’s most revered singer songwriters, Charlie Parr, was accompanying Mikkel. The two have been playing together for many years, maybe nearly as long as I have been a fan of Charlie, since 1999 when he played every Wednesday for the ‘Midweek Blues Bracer’ at Duluth’s Fitger’s Brewhouse. Mikkel read a couple essays from a new book of his, one was a moving story about hearing the Charlie Parr song “817 Oakland Ave” after emerging from a weekslong camping excursion with no music.

One thing I learned from this fantastic piece by my friend Jim Walsh in MinnPost a couple years ago is that Charlie Parr bought Mikkel his first washboard! This is just a great story and the fact that these two met as social workers in 1995 is just amazing. I was also reminded by that article that Mikkel accompanied Charlie for his set opening for Trampled By Turtles at their sold out Armory show, with a capacity of 8,000. (https://www.minnpost.com/uncategorized/2023/02/chairman-of-the-washboard-mikkel-beckman-builds-community-around-music/)

8.22 Jimbo’s Forever Young’s Leo Tribute at Tuttle’s

Ever the creative and confident astrological sign, Leos have written plenty of amazing music. Jim Hinkley put together an all-star ensemble (Hinkley on bass, Ryan Stainiger on guitar, Art Hoffman on keys and Annie Hicks on vocals) to salute a couple dozen artists who were born between July 23rd and Aug 22nd. We heard songs by an impressive variety of prominent Leos covering many genres. Jerry Garcia, Kasey Musgraves, Louis Armsrtong, Madonna, Joe Strummer, Buck Owens and Mark Knopfler were all included.

8.23 MN State Fair - Jon Cleary, Belfast Cowboys, Arrested Development at MN State Fair

London born Jon Cleary moved to New Orleans at a young age and stayed there, becoming a renown pianist and songwriter. We stumbled upon his set, and hearing the NOLA style grooves, had to check it out. I’d never heard of him before this, and his show was a good reminder that it’s always worth checking out who is playing at the bandshell!

Belfast Cowboys played the International Bazaar stage, with their entire 5 piece horn section joining. The Cowboys, led by Terry Walsh, play play every Tuesday at the Driftwood, and cover Van Morrison songs as well as Dylan, The Stones, The Band, Springsteen, and plenty of originals!

Finally, the main event for the evening was Arrested Development, the group formed in the late 80s and won two Grammys in 1993. They’re known for conscious rap and the huge hits “Tennessee”, “Mr. Wendel”, and “Everyday People”. Having seen them play at Harvest Fest at Harmony Park many years ago, I knew for certain that they put on an amazing show! Enough so even that I had no qualms about skipping the Atmosphere show at the Grandstand.

8.24 Shotgun Ragtime Band at Driftwood

8.25 Los Lobos at MN State Fair

Amazingly, this band that got started in LA in 1973 still has all five original members!

David Hidalgo, Louie Pérez, Cesar Rosas, Conrad Lozano, and Steve Berlin were all on hand and drew perhaps the largest crowd I’ve ever seen at the bandshell. And it was a Monday night! There was accordion and washboards and saxophone and fireworks nearby after the Grandstand show ended, and canciones en Espanol.

“La Bamba” was saved for the encore, where it was preceded by “Turn On Your Lovelight” and seamlessly flowed into “Good Lovin’” in classic Grateful Dead style.

“Good Lovin’”:

8.27 Neil Young at Northerly Island Pavilion

It was an absolute honor to be present for the debut of “Big Crime”, which made news across the country as the latest in Neil Young’s rich and powerful canon of protest songs. Here is an artist who has been directly and personally threatened with having his US citizenship revoked by the insecure and petty President of the United States. Rather than stay silent, Neil would not be cowed and wrote a simple and undeniable song to point out the obvious. It felt impactful immediately, and the roars from the audience just got louder as people realized that we were witnessing history. Here are the lyrics, fearless and direct:

No more great again
No more great again
Got big crime in DC at the White House

Don’t need no fascist rules
Don't want no fascist schools
Don’t want soldiers walking on our streets
Got big crime in DC at the White House
There's big crime in DC at the White House

Got to get the fascists out
Got to clean the White House out
Don’t want no soldiers on our streets
Got big crime in DC at the White House
Got big crime in DC at the White House

No more great again
No more great again
Got big crime in DC at the White House

No more money to the fascists the billionaire fascists

TIME TO BLACKOUT THE SYSTEM

No more great again

No - no more great again

TIME TO BLACKOUT THE SYSTEM

Got big crime in DC at the White House

NO MORE GREAT AGAIN No NO MORE GREAT AGAIN

There’s big crime in DC at THE White House

NO MORE GREAT AGAIN

Earlier in the set, the opening chords of “Ohio” instantly sent chills through my body. The Neil Young penned CSNY song, written over 50 years ago in response to National Guard troops killing four college students at Kent State during a peaceful protest of the Vietnam war, felt all too current. Hopefully we don’t see any similar tragedies if Chicago is subjected to another of wannabe dictator Trump’s illegal and unnecessary deployments of National Guard troops.

Neil and his band were fantastic, full of righteous anger and ferocious guitars. The Chrome Hearts, named for a lyric in “Long May You Run”, features Micah Nelson (Willie’s son) on guitar and the flying (well, lowered from the top of the stage on wires) 1974 Crumar Univox Stringman Synthesizer, aka the “Like A Hurricane” keyboard. Also in the band are Corey McCormick on bass and Anthony LoGerfo on drums, both from Micah’s brother Lukas Nelson’s band, Promise of the Real. POTR were Neil’s backing band from 2014-2109 so Brianna and I saw them with Neil at Jazzfest in 2016.

Crazy Horse was well represented with 4 songs from that era in the setlist, including “Hey Hey, My My”, as well as 3 CSNY songs and even “Mr. Soul” from all the way back in Neil’s Buffalo Springfield days.

“Ohio”:

With Oasis playing the following night at nearby Soldier Field, hundreds of drones appeared near the stadium mid set to promote the event. At least one member of Oasis, guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs, was present at the Neil show and posted on Insta from backstage. We’d hoped Noel Gallagher would join Neil for a song or two, as Noel has stated in the past that if given the chance to play with any living artist, he replied Neil Young without any hesitation. Alas, it was not that type of party and we’ll have to hope the two artists cross paths again!

“Hey Hey My My”:

8.28 Oasis at Soldier Field

The first Oasis show in the US in 17 years was bloody brilliant! You might even say biblical, as Liam has modestly suggested.

After years of fans hoping for a reunion, and plenty of speculation as to whether the Gallagher brothers, singer Liam and guitarist/songwriter Noel, would be able to get along long enough to tour successfully, here they were at Soldier Field. None of that past drama mattered anymore to the 61,000 people who were on hand to witness what felt like a surreal event. It was really happening, and we were among the relatively few fortunate enough to score tickets.

Halfway through this completely sold-out world tour, the band was in top form for their US debut. Liam Gallagher is a rarity in the modern era, an unabashedly cocky rock star who demands adulation, frequently bringing his hands to his ears to signify he expected more cheers and applause and screams. His swagger is virtually unmatched and is reminiscent of great frontmen like Mick Jagger. Most of the show he had his hoodie up and, in classic Liam fashion, leaned forward with his hands behind his back to deliver the lyrics. For his part, Noel’s stage presence was self-assured yet earnest as ever on the songs he sang, including the anthemic “Don’t Look Back In Anger” and “Talk Tonight”.

Brianna and I had seen Noel Gallagher and the High Flying Birds in Milwaukee in 2012 and he played several Oasis songs including an acoustic “Champagne Supernova”. That was special and seemed like it might be the closest I’d ever get to seeing Oasis. Over thirteen years later, the brothers set aside their infamous name calling and bickering to make the dreams of countless fans come true. When the brothers triumphantly walked on stage hand in hand, Soldier Field went absolutely bonkers, and a great many tears of joy were shed. I don’t know if I’ve ever been to a show where there was more emotion on display from fans. Halfway through the 2020s, I think it’s safe to say this will be among the decade’s highlights.