Bela & the original Flecktones

Lee gave me a tip that the original Flecktones would be playing with Bela Fleck on his upcoming tour. There is one guy who played harmonica and piano who stopped playing with the Flecktones before I started listening to them. He was joining them for the first time in 16 years on a few dates this tour. They were playing at the Strathmore and I had the date on my calendar for months but never did get a ticket. Lee talked about going to the venue to get tickets but ended up not going. I finally got online the day before and there were only about 10 tickets left. I scored a lone seat in the middle of the 6th row. Not bad at all.

Teri and I hit Faccia Luna for some fine 'zaa and then I took off to the show. I took the metro all the way there since Lee wasn't going. The show started at 8:00 and I didn't walk in to the venue until about 8:20. They want you to wait for a break between songs to sit after the show has started. There was no way I was going to get to my front and center seat without interrupting the show anyway. I tried to go between songs but Bela doesn't stop for long and was right on to the next one. To make matters worse the ushers had me enter on the wrong side. My seat was closer to the other side and once I found my row I had to push by everyone all the way down the row during a quite part of the show with the whole audience and band checking me out. Once seated though things were good. Just like the Widespread Panic & Allman Brothers Band show I forgot how much more detail you capture sitting up close. All four members of the band were right in front of me.

I've seen Bela and the Flecktones on many occasions. They are all excellent musicians although my least favorite is Futureman. Not sure what his deal is; he plays percussion on some funky garage built guitar looking contraption. He taps on the thing to get his sampled sounds. To me its a gimmick and I'm not impressed. Sitting this close though I got the best look so far at his instrument. He did play a few real drums and cymbals with one hand on occasion.

Bela played his usual virtuoso banjo. He switched between his normal custom banjo and his purple bodied banjo with a sampling system attached. Victor Wooten also threw down. He played his fretless 5 string most of the night and sounded awesome. The new guy switched between harmonica and piano. Admittedly I haven't seen a ton of harmonica players, John Popper is the obvious one that comes to mind, but this guy is one of the best. He played these awesome loops at about a dozen notes per second and then played melodies within the loops making it about two dozen notes per second. It was amazing. All four guys had the stage to themselves for a bit. It was some good jams and a good time.