After a couple of weeks off, Yonder Mountain String Band continued their tour behind their latest studio release, Black Sheep, Tuesday July 7th at the Brooklyn Bowl. While Yonder celebrated the release of their latest record, the Brooklyn Bowl held a celebration of their own, having opened their doors six years earlier.

The quintet strode on to the stage, opening up with the band’s “Winds of Wyoming” before seamlessly segueing into “Mother’s Only Son”. The second song of the night featured long, slow-building solos from guitarist Adam Aijala, fiddle player Alie Kral and mandolin player Jacob Jolliff.

Kral and Jolliff are both relative newcomers to the band, tasked with replacing original mandolinist Jeff Austin, who left to pursue other projects. Austin had a distinctive energy about him—kinetic, unwieldy, frenetic and hyper are a few choice adjectives to describe it—that helped push forward the band’s music. Whether it were his lightning quick runs or distinctive howls when he stepped to the microphone, Austin gave the band a unique edge.

L4LM Goes Behind The Scenes With Yonder Mountain String Band

Jolliff on the other hand, is far more understated. His skill on the mandolin is off-the-charts. However, if there’s a problem with his playing, it’s that he makes it seem too easy. Whereas Austin looked as if he felt every note, Jolliff is perfectly content to close his eyes and let his hands go to work, furiously ripping up and down the fretboard.

After a quick run through Bill Monroe’s “Whitehouse Blues,” the set reached it’s climax with Kral stepping up to the mic for the Dolly Parton classic, “Jolene.” While she doesn’t sing often with Yonder, Kral’s voice is a breath of fresh air into the band, belting out the country classic over phenomenal harmonies laid down by the rest of the band. This whipped the crowd, which had gradually built over the course of the set, into a frenzy as feet stomped and people howled while the song built.

The set closed with The Beatles’ “Only a Northern Song” sandwiching their own “Sidewalk Stars,” which featured some of the best interplay between the two newest members of the group—Kral and Jolliff—as the song ebbed and flowed. The band then closed the 70 minute opening frame by having the crowd sing “Happy Birthday” to the Brooklyn Bowl.

After a short, 20-minute set break, the band came back out with “Insult and an Elbow” off their new album, a bluegrass tune updated for the 21st Century. The set picked up steam with the Jolliff-penned “Up For Brinkley’s” before the highest point of the set, the Pure Prarie League’s “Amie.” While they didn’t take it out for an extended spin, the crowd lapped up every second of the cover, screaming out the words to the oft-covered bluegrass classic.

The second set saw a small hiccup when the fire alarm went off in the middle of the group’s “I’m Lost,” sending the band off the stage for a few minutes before they restarted the song. After the song, bassist Ben Kaufmann took to the mic to say, “Word around the campfire is that you can’t smoke weed in the bathroom,” which led to a brief “Burnin’ Down the House” fakeout from Aijala.

But the Talking Heads wouldn’t disappear totally for the rest of the show, as the group closed with a lengthy segment that began with the band’s own “Around You,” seguing seamlessly into “Years With Rose.” At this point, the energy started building in the room as individually, band members began toying with the melody from “Girlfriend is Better” before eventually giving it a full run. The cover also saw the first bass solo of the night, met with loud applause and cheers.

The group closed out the set by once again handing the microphone to Kral, who injected a big dose of soul into Townes Van Zandt’s “White Freightliner Blues,” which turned the audience into a full-blown hootenanny, stomping their feet and clapping their hands.

In the encore slot, Kaufmann took to the mic for the Yonder original, “Catch a Criminal” before closing out with the traditional, as made famous by the Grateful Dead, “I Know You Rider,” with their own distinctive bluegrass bent to it.

While it may have been a Tuesday night, those on hand for the festivities were in for a real treat as they mixed in a heavy dose of covers to go along with plenty of newer material. Yonder continues their summer tour tonight with a show at the Ridgefield Playhouse in Ridgefield, CT.

Setlist – Yonder Mountain String Band at Brooklyn Bowl, 7/7/15:

Set One:
Winds of Wyoming
Mother’s Only Son
Long Time
Nothin’ But Nothin’
Anna Lee (Levon Helm cover)
White House Blues (Dublin City Ramblers cover)
Jolene (Dolly Parton cover)
Only a Northern Song (The Beatles cover) >
Sidewalk Stars >
Only a Northern Song (The Beatles cover) >
Happy Birthday ([traditional] cover)

Set Two:
Insult and an Elbow
Drown
Up For Brinkley’s
Amie (Pure Prairie League cover)
Landfall
Burning Down The House (Talking Heads tease)
I’m Lost, I’ll Never Find the Way (The Stanley Brothers cover)
Rambler’s Anthem
Around You
Years With Rose
Girlfriend Is Better (Talking Heads cover) >
Amanda Rose >
White Freight Liner (Townes Van Zandt cover)

Encore:
Criminal
I Know You Rider (Grateful Dead cover)

Words by Brian Weidy, Photos by Andrew Scott Blackstein