Umphrey’s McGee and Lettuce returned to St. Augustine Amphitheatre on Sunday alongside Andy Frasco, Isaiah Sharkey, Jennifer Hartswick, Nick Cassarino, and more for the second and final day of Fool’s Paradise 2022.
The long day in St. Augustine kicked off early with a number of artist-led excursions and activities. Erick “Jesus” Coomes (Lettuce) and Joel Cummins (Umphrey’s McGee) hit the links with fans at the nearby Fiesta Falls for a round of mini golf. Lettuce’s horn section/resident sommeliers Eric “Benny” Bloom and Ryan Zoidis schooled attendees on the fruits of the vine at a wine tasting. Across the venue, Adam “Shmeeans” Smirnoff and Adam Deitch of Lettuce and Ryan Stasik of Umphrey’s McGee squared off against members of the audience in a hard-fought ping pong tournament.
As “Pirates and Mermaids” floated through the crowd, vocalist/trumpeter Jennifer Hartswick (Trey Anastasio Band) and vocalist/guitarist Nick Cassarino (The Nth Power) kicked off the music schedule for the day with an easy-going set on the Front Porch stage. The decades of musical kinship they share were readily apparent as they wove through original collaborations like “Drowning”, the first song they wrote together as teenagers in Vermont—back “in the Jurassic Period,” Nick joked.
Even in their minimalist, two-piece formation, Hartswick and Cassarino managed to breathe fresh artistic perspective into a slew of classic tunes. With unique melodic affectations from Jen and inventively phrased guitar runs from Nick tastefully woven throughout selections like blues staple “How Blue Can You Get” (B.B. King), “Can’t Find My Way Home” (Blind Faith), “Creep” (Radiohead), “Your Love” (The Outfield), “I Would Die 4 U” (Prince), not a moment nor a note felt wasted throughout the performance.
“Make sure you catch all the music,” Hartswick advised as they bid farewell to the sun-drenched Front Porch, “Even the music you don’t know.” She added, singing the words to drive them home, “Sometimes that’s the best shit.”
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Andy Frasco & The U.N. got the show started on the Amphitheatre Stage with an unruly performance in the afternoon heat. From rowdy sing-alongs on earworms like “Dancing Around My Grave” to instrument-swapping breakdowns to an audience Horah to cameos from Brendan Bayliss, Ryan Stasik, Nick Cassarino, and Jennifer Hartswick, Frasco and company made sure that Fool’s Paradise was awake and on its feet for the busy day of music to come.
I got kicked out of St Augustine years ago for doing this at a church event on a Sunday and had to write a apology letter they published in the paper. 5 years later we back on our bullshit. Thanks for coming for Florida https://t.co/tLhUWZfi90
— andyfrasco (@andyfrasco) June 5, 2022
Isaiah Sharkey and his talented band hit the Porch Stage next for their first of two sets. Oscillating between original material and soul’d-out renditions of a slew of covers, the player best known for his work with the likes of John Mayer and D’Angelo showed St. Augustine that he’s much more than your favorite guitarist’s favorite guitarist—he’s also singer, showman, and bandleader to be reckoned with.
An early take on The Spinners‘ “It’s A Shame” briefly got a traditional R&B reading before Isaiah called a mulligan and restarted the tune with a swaggering, Soulquarians-style swing (“We’re not gonna do it like that,” he smiled before the switch-up, “We’re gonna do our own version”). A fiery “Born Under A Bad Sign” (Albert King) and a soaring “Little Wing” (Jimi Hendrix) brought the brief set to a close, leaving a buzzing audience wanting more. Fortunately, they’d get it before long.
Flipping the order from day one, Umphrey’s McGee took the Amphitheatre Stage next for a two-set show ahead of Lettuce’s weekend-closing performance. Reflecting that reversal, Umphrey’s used the daytime slot for a performance that skewed much lighter and more melodic than Saturday night’s brand of metal-tinged mayhem.
“Thank you for coming out early on a Sunday to detox with Umphrey’s McGee,” Bayliss said as the band eased in. The first set wove through a number of tried-and-true Umphrey’s classics like “Out of Order” as well as a “Night Nurse” dedicated to Andy Frasco & The U.N. (“They deserve a nice little chill break after that onslaught on my morality,” Bayliss joked).
Set two rolled on with the same old-school energy with a big “1348” and a “Partyin’ Peeps” that tipped a hat to the vacation ambiance at the Amphitheatre throughout the weekend. After moving from “Puppet String” into “Hajimemashite” into a monster “Utopian Fir” and back to “Puppet String”, the band put a cap on its first trip to Fool’s Paradise with “JaJunk”. A full recording of the show is available to stream via nugs.net.
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Setlist: Umphrey’s McGee | Fool’s Paradise | St. Augustine Amphitheatre | St. Augustine, FL | 6/4/22
Set One: Looks, Wellwishers, Domino Theory, Out Of Order, Professor Wormbog, Night Nurse, 40’s Theme
Set Two: 1348, Partyin’ Peeps, Hajimemashite, Utopian Fir, Puppet String, JaJunk
Back over at the Front Porch, where the sun had now set behind the horizon, Isaiah Sharkey and company drew the audience back in to finish what they had started. A James Taylor cover he had hinted at earlier in the afternoon arrived here in the form of a transformed “Fire and Rain” that quickly ballooned into a soul-funk explosion. The performance finally came to a breathtaking climax with an instrumental medley of “America The Beautiful”, “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, and “Amazing Grace” that felt as spiritually tied to today’s racial and societal ills as it did to Jimi’s famous “Star-Spangled Banner” so many decades ago.
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With night falling on St. Augustine, Lettuce took the stage one last time. Digging into Unify once again, the band graced the Fools in attendance with wild rides through new standouts “Vámonos”, “The Lock”, “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright”, and more.
As time wound down, a reverent Nigel Hall welcomed Isaiah Sharkey to the stage to join in with Lettuce. As Coomes explained while Sharkey took his place next to Shmeeans, “So, we’ve never played this song before, and Isaiah’s never played it before, so this will be all of our first time ever performing and playing this song.”
Like they’d done it a million times, the Isaiah-augmented Lettuce dove into Unify‘s “Lett The World Know” with precision, the song’s funk shuffle and catchy refrain providing Shmeeans, Shark, and the rest of the gang with ample space to testify. After a brief pause for elated applause, Isaiah hung around for a set-closing “Do It Like You Do” to round out another memorable edition of Fool’s Paradise.
Watch a video of Lettuce and Isaiah Sharkey performing “Lett The World Know” and listen to a full audio recording of the set below. Scroll down to view a full gallery of photos from Sunday, June 5th at Fool’s Paradise via Patrick Hughes. Revisit coverage from day one of the event on Saturday, June 4th here.
Lettuce ft. Isaiah Sharkey – “Lett The World Know” (Debut) – Fool’s Paradise – 6/5/22
Lettuce – Fool’s Paradise – St. Augustine, FL – 6/5/22 – Full Audio
[Audio: Recorded by Marc Foster, mixed by Funk It Blog]
