On Friday night, Greensky Bluegrass kicked off their two-night run at The Fillmore Detroit with a fiery first show despite the generally shitty and snowy weather that’s overtaken the Midwest. Appropriately, the progressive bluegrass five-piece opened the show with a “Worried About The Weather” sandwich, which contained the Grateful Dead’s “China Cat Sunflower” (which also contained nods to its classic partner, “I Know You Rider”, and saw the band joined by Guido Batista and a gorilla mask-clad Luke Milanese) and “Burn Them” off 2014’s If Sorrows Swim. Without pause, the group took “Worried About The Weather” into a take on “Miss September” before landing in a final rendition of “Burn Them” to close out the non-stop six-song opening sprint. After “In Control” and “Can’t Stop Now”, the group ended out the first set on a high note by inviting out Mike Lynch for the group’s covers of the traditional gospel tune “I’m Working On A Building” and Bob Marley’s “Could You Be Loved”.

Keeping up the vibe from the first set’s Bob Marley set closer, Greensky Bluegrass returned for set two with an opening reggae jam of “For Sure, Uh Huh”. This song marked a major highlight of the night given the hilarious banter during the tune. After Paul Hoffman laid out the first Chewbacca call of the tune—elicitting Anders Beck to note, “It’s like Chewbacca playing the trumpet?”—Anders, after quipping with Paul to “shut the hell up”, asked the audience which member of the band they thought had the best Chewbacca impression (spoiler: it was the band’s banjo player, Michael Arlen Bont, and it was amazing). From there, the band embarked on their high-energy second set, which featured a combination of “All Four” into “The Four” and takes on the group’s relatively new cover of Cris Jacobs’ “Bone Digger” off 2016’s Dust To Gold as well as The Stanley Brothers’ “Pig In A Pen”. The group closed set-two with a stellar rendition of Norton Buffalo’s “Ain’t No Bread In The Breadbox” (largely made famous by Jerry Garcia Band), which featured teases of Prince’s “1999” and the classic “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”.

Setlist: Greensky Bluegrass | The Fillmore | Detroit, MI | 2/9/2018

Set One: Worried About the Weather > China Cat Sunflower > Burn Them > Miss September > Burn Them, In Control, Can’t Stop Now, Working on a Building* > Could You Be Love*

Set Two: For Sure Uh Huh > All Four > The Four > Help Me Hang On, Bone Digger, Better Off, Reverend > Pig in a Pen, Ain’t No Bread in the Breadbox

Encore: Tied Down

*w/ Mike Lynch

[Audio: Todd Moore]

[Photo: Sam Watson]