The String Cheese Incident built their fan base like they built their sound, one step at a time, and Suwannee Hulaween‘s three straight days of jamming gave them ample opportunity to show ALL their skills. Though Cheese may be known for their ability to blend wildly differing sonic genres under one cohesive roof, at their heart, they’re a bluegrass band. It’s fitting that they went on to become a band of many faces since bluegrass itself contains elements of classical, traditional and folk music of all the homelands of the frontier settlers of the North American continent. For Sunday’s set at Hulaween, the band traditionally celebrates their humble string based roots during their daylight “Morning” set, and this year did not disappoint.
Guitarist Billy Nershi and mandolin and fiddle player Michael Kang, the two Cheese heads most connected to the bluegrass origins of the band were clearly enjoying the showcase, though the full band was in fine form as a unit. Nershi danced his little dances while Kang bit hard into the dense instrumental passages the tunes afforded him. Kyle Hollingsworth proved once again that adding an organ to bluegrass creates a gospel sound both compelling and original, while percussionists Jason Haan and Michael Travis had both the hardest and easiest of times as they were the least foreshadowed in the bluegrass make up while Keith Moseley more than managed to cover the sound of an upright bass with his electrified thumping.
Check out this wide assortment of bluegrass standards and songs done in Cheese’s stylized take on the genre courtesy of our own Rex-A-Vision, all from the heart of Hulaween, The Spirit Of The Suwannee Music Festival. After you finish these clips, check out this pro-shot clip of their Saturday “Rollover-Space Jam” encore from Saturday and these clips of their guest Rayland Baxter‘s sit in on Friday night for more Cheese-y goodness.
String Cheese Incident “White Freightliner Blues”
String Cheese Incident “Whiskey Before Breakfast”
String Cheese Incident “Water”