On the beautiful warm summer night of June 30th, Yonder Mountain String Band performed a free show as a part of the 9thStreet Summerfest Outdoor Concert Series. Through local and big name sponsors of Columbus, MO, the eight-part concert series event is made free to the public of all ages. The Blue Note, a local bar, hosted the event in between Broadway and Walnut on 9th, which provided an intimate setting to the young, old, and everyone else in between.

The small host city was pleasantly brought into the evening by the opening string band called Old Salt Union. The feeling among the attendees and the bands was that the event will be rained out due to incoming bad weather. Yonder’s most comical moment during the show was when bassist, Ben Kaufmann, mentioned how Adam Aijala, guitarist, had bought a fancy “boutique” app on his phone for weather predictions, and said he should ask for his money back because clearly Columbus didn’t get hit by bad weather. As the sun set past eight and the clouds turned to cotton candy pink, the audience got lucky and the show went on.

The night included a plethora of covers. “Shakedown Street” in the encore, “Life in the Fast Lane,” and “For What It’s Worth” were definitely crowd favorites, since everyone was able to sing along. Rain Still Falls, an original song, brought some irony to the night

Two duets, instrumental and vocal, mesmerized the crowd. Jesse Farrar from Old Salt Union joined Ben Kaufmann on stage for first a upright bass trade off in solos which ended in both musicians playing on the same bass at the same time. The second vocal duet was also with Jesse Farrar for “Hadn’t Been for Love” by the Steel Drivers with Allie Kral. The two song encore pleasantly concluded the evening and left a happily satisfied crowd. 

Check out a full gallery of images below from Tara Gracer Design & Photography.