Late on Saturday night, Soulive took the stage in LOCKN’ Festival’s Garcia’s Forest following Tedeschi Trucks Band, Trey Anastasio, and Doyle Bramhall II‘s full recreation of the classic Derek and the Dominos album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.
Soulive and Peter Shapiro, the co-founder of LOCKN and owner of Brooklyn Bowl (among other venues), have a long history of curating memorable, guest-filled performances by way of their long-running Bowlive residency at the Brooklyn venue. With Soulive’s LOCKN’ late-night positioned in a prime Saturday post-midnight slot on the schedule, expectations were high for similar collaborative fireworks in Garcia’s Forest.
The set was billed as Soulive ft. The Infinity Horns, a brass section nobody seemed to know much about ahead of the show. However, this mysterious outfit turned out to be just one of several exciting guests to appear during the set. The core Soulive trio—comprised of guitarist Eric Krasno, keyboardist Neal Evans, and drummer Alan Evans—kicked things off in the Forest with a handful of originals and staple instrumental covers like The Beatles‘ “Eleanor Rigby”.
Guitarist Danny Mayer, a frequent Krasno collaborator and current member of Star Kitchen, was the first to join in, helping the band tear through their searing arrangement of Jimi Hendrix‘s “Manic Depression”. Next, guitarist Duane Betts—son of the Allman Brothers Band‘s Dickey Betts—took the stage to link up with Krasno for the classic dual-guitar gymnastics of the Allmans’ “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed”. This rendition of “Liz Reed” had a similarly powerful effect on those in the crowd and those on the stage. As Duane joked when he stepped to the mic to address the crowd after the song, “That was a f*ckin workout.”
[Photo: Dave Vann]
Finally, Soulive called the Infinity Horns to the stage, and three musicians strode on to join them with their hoods covering their heads and faces. The guest horn section eventually took off their hoods to reveal that they were, in fact, the Trey Anastasio Band Horns: trumpeter Jennifer Hartswick, trombonist Natalie Cressman, and saxophonist James Casey. The horns remained onstage throughout the rest of the performance, which wrapped up just after 3 a.m.
[Photo: Dave Vann]
Scroll down to watch a selection of clips from the performance:
[Video: Anton van Peppen]
[Video: Anton van Peppen]