JESSE FAATZ
Billy Strings performs at The Prudential Center in Newark, along with bassist Royal Masat and banjo player Billy Failing.
Newark and New Jersey are not normally associated with bluegrass music. But then, Billy Strings does not play your granddaddy’s bluegrass.
Strings, who is believed to be the first bluegrass player ever to fill arenas, made long-awaited huge-venue appearances with sold-out shows Nov. 14-15 at The Prudential Center in Newark.
Strings, an acoustic-guitar virtuoso with a highly skilled band, did not disappoint his devoted fans, known as the “Billy Goats.”
JESSE FAATZ
Billy Strings and his band (from left, Jarrod Walker, Royal Masat, Strings, Billy Failing, Alex Hargreaves)
Strings — born William Apostol, now 33 and on the scene for more than a decade — is the leader of a genre that is catching on rapidly: psychedelic bluegrass, or jamgrass. Millennial musicians who grew up listening to metal, punk and classic-rock are incorporating those sensibilities into their guitar-, fiddle-, mandolin- and banjo-driven tunes.
Strings’ fans come in all ages, many of them followers of the Grateful Dead or devotees of traditional bluegrass, Americana, folk, blues, country and country-rock.
On Nov. 15, Strings got straight to the sad business of the day by opening with “Play a Train Song” (watch below), a signature song of a recently deceased soulmate, Todd Snider. Strings told a story about how he once owned a treasured denim jacket on which he sewed a Panama Red patch. Strings said he lost the jacket about seven years ago at a music festival in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. A couple of days later, Strings saw a photo on the Internet of Snider wearing the jacket and thought, “That’s even cooler. What a fuckin’ badass.”
Strings leaned slightly toward softer, tender ballads like “In the Morning Light,” “My Alice” and “Love Like Me” along with a wonderful cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “Pancho and Lefty.” He also delivered such rocking fare as “Seven Weeks in County,” “I’m a Natural Born Gamblin’ Man” and an especially fierce cover of “All Time Low,” a barn burner from a fellow jam band, Widespread Panic.
He and his band closed the first and second sets with hard-driving jams on “Away from the Mire” and “Hide and Seek,” respectively.
Strings and the band showed how their greatest hit, the eclectic “Gild the Lily” (watch below), has evolved into a vehicle for a marvelous jam. It also contains his most memorable lyric thus far: “I’d sing along with the birds, if I only knew the words.”
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1 comment
A terrific review, Ben, accompanied by two transfixing videos of Billy Strings performing in the Prudential Center!
Billy Strings’ “Gild the Lily” enthralls the listener as Strings and his band are playing and jamming to his super-catchy tune.