Show Review: 2014-01-31, The Werks and Umphrey's McGee

Friday night, January 31^st, two Midwest bands performed at Lifestyle Communities Pavilion’s (LC) indoor stage that rocked the socks off of a sold out crowd.  The fans packed in early for The Werks from Dayton, Ohio who open the night at 8:00pm with a powerful one-hour set.  It’s always nice to see a full house from start to finish and for fans of this genre, why wouldn’t it be.  This was the Werks first night of two opening for Umphrey’s McGee and it was evident that the band was here to rock.  The Werk’s set composed of jam style songs witch mixed psycodelic rock, funk, and electronic music.  They opened the night with “Duck Farm” and followed it with a cover of “Hush” by Deep Purple with Dan Shaw on keys for some blistering organ.  Dan Shaw has been getting lots of time with the band lately on tour as Norman Dimitrouleas takes some personal time.  Norman took the stage for the rest of the set and fans were evidently pleased.  The band journeyed through the rest of its set, which featured powerful crowd pleasers like “Hard to Find” and closed with “Onlought” which had the crowd amped with its driving riff that pulsed the crowed. Rob Chafin multi tasks technical drum beats while sharing a sizable amount of lead vocals on a number of songs.  This band shreds.

After about a half hour stage change and break for he fans.  Umphrey’s McGee of South Bend, Indiana took the stage for the first of two sets.  For those of you who don’t know about Umphrey’s McGee, you never know what you are going to get.  One show could be straight shredded rock and the next could be heavily electronic and dance influenced.  You just don’t know.  This show happened to be a mix of mostly shredded progressive rock with a splash of electronic. A lot of the set was composed of older material with a few newer tunes.  They opened with “Nipple Trix”.  I wonder what is implied with this song title.  Anyways, this song segued into “Slacker” and then right into “Plunger” to “Glory” back to “Plunger” and into “Pay The Snucka”, which turned into “Final Words” and then back to “Snucka” and finally to a rest with deafening applause.  This string of songs was a journey and something very typical of Umphrey’s McGee.  It traveled from intense aural compositions to mellow and then back again and the set wasn’t over yet.  After this adventure of songs the band mellowed out with “Deeper” and transitioned to “Day Nurse” for the set ender.  It was a rocker of a first set.

 Fifteen minutes passed as the audience prepared for the next set.  The band took the stage again for another long set.  They opened with a 24-minute “Jajunk” which traveled through intricately laid out parts and climaxes with wild soloing from Jake Cinninger and the band. The showcontinued on in an adventurous state evolving from one genre to the next while mixing them together.  “Robot World” started out mellow and electronic and evolved into a heavy hitting drive of the major riff, as it does, and segued into the reggae influences “Higgins”.  “Intnentions Clear” added another fun moment to the show as Jake Cinninger and Ryan Stasik walked out into the audience and performed a high-energy solo on the ramp back to back in the crowd on stage right.  It was like two heroes in a battle and was epic to say the least.  The band ended the set and returned for the encore after the entire crowd cheered and chanted, “We want the Umph, gotta have that Umph”.  When Umphrey’s covers a song, they tend to own it and did so with Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”, which then transitioned into “Andy’s Last Beer”.  The audience roared and sent the band off to Detroit for the next gig with The Werks.  Many fans followed. 

Full photo sets of The Werks here and Umphrey's McGee here.

Full photo set of Umphrey's McGee's Jeff Waful light show here.

2014-01-31 Setlists from L.C. Columbus, OH

The Werks (opening for Umphrey's McGee) 

Duck Farm

Hush [1]

Fat Man >

Better Half

Hard to Find

Heading South

Onslaught

(Norman Dimitrouleas on keys for all except "[1]")

[1]: Dan Shaw on keys

Umphrey’s Mcgee

1ST SET:

Nipple Trix > (03:37)

Slacker > (11:56)

Plunger > (03:35)

Glory [1] > (04:53)

Plunger > (11:20)

Pay The Snucka > (08:00)

Final Word > (04:40)

Pay The Snucka > (03:04)

Deeper (08:29)

Day Nurse > (07:14)

2ND SET:

JaJunk (24:40)

Bad Friday (09:01)

Robot World >  (07:22)

Higgins (13:12)

Intentions Clear > (11:46)

Hajimemashite (09:50)

ENCORE:

Kashmir (08:56)

Andy's Last Beer (06:40)

[1] with Rhiannon (Fleetwood Mac) tease