Emmylou Harris & Red Dirt Boys at Banjo Stage, October 6, 2024

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass presents Sunday Soundcheck Church featuring Emmylou Harris & Red Dirt Boys
Banjo Stage, Hellman Hollow
Golden Gate Park, 50 Overlook Dr, San Francisco, CA 94122 USA
9:00 AM, Sunday, October 6, 2024

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2024 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2024 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

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{word from other church-goers is that Soundcheck actually started before 9 AM this year, dang! So 2-3 songs are missing??}

[9:11 AM] {I'm seated and taking notes! EH working with the sound crew on her vocal mix}

1. [9:12 AM] Red Dirt Girl (fragment) (Emmylou Harris)
   [9:11 AM] {EH cuts the tune short; EH greets the crowd}
2. [9:13 AM] Get Up John (incomplete) (Bill Monroe / Marty Stuart / Jerry Sullivan)
   [9:16 AM] {EH cuts the tune short; pause to set guitar levels for EH}
3. [9:17 AM] Tulsa Queen (incomplete) (Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell)
   [9:20 AM] {banter about sausage-making & dead air}
4. [9:22 AM] Right Now (incomplete) (Mark Knopfler)
   [9:26 AM] {applause and off-mic band discussion}
5. [9:26 AM] Right Now (fragmentary take 2) (Mark Knopfler)
   [9:27 AM] {WK noodling while band talks things over}
   [9:29 AM] {EH tells some HSB history}
6. [9:29 AM] Return of the Grievous Angel (Gram Parsons & Beau Brown)
   [9:34 AM] {applause and dead air while another mic is set up for the trio vocal}
7. [9:36 AM] Bright Morning Stars (traditional)
   [9:38 AM] {applause & final comments from EH}
   [9:39 AM] {done}

• Chris Donohue: bass, contrabass;
• Emmylou Harris: acoustic guitar, vox;
• Will Kimbrough: guitar, acoustic guitar, banjo, bass, resonator guitar, accordion, harmonica, vox;
• Phil Madeira: keyboards, accordion, acoustic guitar, acoustic slide guitar, vox;
• Eamon McLoughlin: violin, mandolin, vox;
• Bryan Owings: drums.

I was a little disappointed that Sunday entry wasn't adjusted to let us get to the banjo stage in time for the start of church with Emmylou. Oh well: sometimes the system is stacked against ya!

Emmylou made a funny comment after greeting us that it was weird to be out in shirt sleeves instead of parkas. Indeed! It was downright toasty in the morning sunshine: very weird for SF to be fog free this whole weekend!

Each of the tunes before Return of the Grievous Angel were cut off somewhere in the middle. I wasn't close enough to see how this was being done, but most (all?) of the stops were coordinated, so clearly the musicians were watching and/or expecting to stop mid-song.

Later Emmylou made a comment how we we're getting to see how the musical sausage was made, but with most all of the onstage banter being done off-mic, I'll complain that I was left with mystery meat: most of the time it was really hard to follow anything about what was going on during the periods in-between the regular performances.

All in all, I'm still glad we rallied and got up early to hear the soundcheck: it might not be advertised, but you know it's gonna happen: might as well get there in time to hear it!

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2024 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2024 event list! ☸ On to the next event!