We are only four months into the year of 2019 and Umphrey’s McGee has already blown their fans out of the water with their phenomenal talent. The band managed to reach a harmonious high in their career after playing twenty-eight shows, five VIP sets, and four festival sets all in their first tour of the year. During the Wax On, Wax Off tour, the band pulled off playing seventeen bust-outs, fifty-eight rarities, twenty sit-ins, two “Jimmy Stewarts,” and one cover debut. They started the year off strong with a two-night stand in Richmond, Virginia (1/11/19-1/12/19) where they got to celebrate keyboardist, Joel Cummin’s, and the bands front of the house engineer, Chris Mitchell’s Birthday. Then, with not having many breaks between weekends and constantly flying from their homes to tour destinations, the band took the fans on a three-month long, whirlwind of a tour.
Instead of sticking to their predictable tour route, they changed it up by blowing the roof off of four venues that they have never played at before, revisiting some venues from the bands past and skipping over (or should I say saving them for later) a couple of destinations. They covered various spots up and down the East Coast, the Mid-West, and they even went to the West Coast for a two week long leg of the tour. Along the way of the Wax On, Wax Off tour, they crushed the first of many festival sets this year. The festival stop’s included Jam Cruise (1/15-1/16/19), and The M3F Festival (3/3/19). The tour concluded on drummer, Kris Meyers’, birthday at The Apres Festival in Aspen, CO on 4/5/19, leaving the fans in complete suspense for their return to the stage on April 27th at the Trondossa Music Festival in Charleston, SC.
The Wax On, Wax Off tour entailed some fat statistic boosters for any die hard umphreak. In just those three short months, Umphrey’s played two hundred and three songs. Forty-three of those were covers and one hundred and sixty were originals. Amongst this large pool of songs, there were seventeen “bust-outs.” A “bust-out” happens when the band plays a song that they haven’t played in a sizeable amount of time. For example, the biggest “bust-out” of the tour was Bob Marley’s “Coming in From the Cold.” The song was played in Milwaukee, WI on 1/26/19, but hadn’t been played before that since 10/9/02 giving it a one thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight show gap. A “bust-out” should not be confused with a rarity. A rarity is a song that gets played every year but probably less than three times. There were fifty-eight rarities played in this tour. The crowd was almost guaranteed a rare song at every non-festival show.
The band added another element to the tour with their debut of Tyler Childers’ “Whitehouse Road” in Nashville, TN on 3/30/19. Jake’s twangy country vocals fit perfectly to this song and the fact that they were in the country music capitol of the world made them nail this tune right on the head. It showcased UM’s constant hunger to further their knowledge of music and try out new things. Although there was only one debut on the tour, the covers that they busted out, like “Walking on the Moon” by The Police (1/11/19), had a crisp freshness to the sound, almost making it into a sort of second debut of the song.
Umphrey’s is not the kind of band to find a comfort zone and stabilize themselves, they are always looking for the opportunity to try something new. This is what keeps the fans coming back for more. The band is always looking to collaborate and make music with other musicians. They invited seven different bands to open for them of the Wax On, Wax Off tour. Having those rotating artists on the road gave UM the chance to be inspired by rising musicians and ready to play together. UM floored their followers with having twenty sit-it performances. The artists mostly consisted of members from the opening bands but also of some invited guests (also including Robbie Williams’ short sit-in on his birthday 3/21/19 on Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl).
But even with the “bust-outs,” rarities, and sit-ins, the improv that was generated throughout the length of the tour was the element that stole the show. The boys played some of the most creative improv that they have ever constructed together. They were cranking out one fire improv jam after another. This technical skill that Umphrey’s has always succeeded at eventually gave birth to two lyrical Jimmy Stewart’s (2/2/19, 4/3/19). The distinct jams that have been produced this year so far will make the hall of fame voting for 2019 an extremely difficult process. A couple stand out jams were “Ocean Billy” from Richmond, “Push the Pig” from Milwaukee, “Plunger” and “Red Tape” from Brooklyn and “Example 1” from Pittsburgh. With the Wax On, Wax Off tour in their back pockets, Umphrey’s McGee gets to take a well- deserved month off to rest up for an exciting summer tour.
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