Hometown heroes Greensky Bluegrass revved up the fun at State Theatre for fans in Kalamazoo, with banjo phenom Bela Fleck fronting an all-star crew at Grand Rapids’ DeVos Performance Hall.
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Bluegrass fans across West Michigan had plenty to celebrate this weekend.
Southwest Michigan-bred Greensky Bluegrass fired up capacity crowds two nights in a row at Kalamazoo’s State Theatre, a Thanksgiving weekend tradition interrupted last year by COVID but resumed with progressive bluegrass fervor in 2021.
It made for a jubilant, homecoming-for-the-ages spectacle.
After all, for members of the band, State Theatre will always be “home,” as mandolinist Paul Hoffman declared in his Instagram post a few hours prior to the show.
Consequently, smiling eyes and faces greeted the band at Friday and Saturday’s sold-out shows, with all 1,300-plus in attendance each night being vaccinated or testing negative prior to the show.
Greensky played two extended sets in lieu of an opener, performing an incredible mix from the band’s extensive catalog, both old and very new, from “Kerosene” and “Windshield” to “Grow Together” — the latest single from the group’s upcoming new studio album, “Stress Dreams,” which will be released on Jan. 21.
Meanwhile, about 50 miles to the north at Grand Rapids’ DeVos Performance Hall, another bunch of bluegrass icons were heating up a more sparsely attended Saturday concert but in just-as-impressive fashion.
Touring behind his latest Grammy-nominated album, “My Bluegrass Heart,” banjo phenom Bela Fleck and his all-star crew — Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer and Bryan Sutton — delivered a show that West Michigan’s Full Cord bluegrass band described on Facebook as “so, so good.”
Indeed, with Fleck orchestrating the evening’s display, Douglas wailed on Dobro magnificently, trading solos with Bush on mandolin, Sutton on acoustic guitar and Duncan on fiddle. The evening included lengthy jamming on a John Hartford cover, Bush’s “Up on the Hill Where They Do the Boogie” and songs from the acclaimed new album.
And as always, Fleck and his bandmates pretty much let their musicianship do all the talking — which was just fine with fans in attendance.
PHOTO GALLERY: Greensky Bluegrass at Kalamazoo State Theatre
Photos by Derek Ketchum
Photos by Anna Sink