Image via YouTube.
Over the weekend, Umphrey’s McGee took over Boston’s House of Blues for the long-awaited celebration of the band’s defining idiosyncrasies and devoted community known as UMBowl. The 10th annual presentation of this beloved event–and the first since 2022–made up for lost time and exceeded titanic expectations with a bottomless buffet of fan service through the course of two nights and six sets. With debuts, bust-outs, and weirdness galore, UM made history and reaffirmed its tremendous commitment to its community all at once.
Umphrey’s kicked off its series on Friday, April 26, with its one and only “Band’s Choice” set of the weekend, carefully wading into the uncharted waters of UMBowl X with a concluding medley that fit “The Triple Wide” within two treatments of “Bridgeless.” The band then opened to the audience for the traditional “Stew Art Event,” in which the band performs a fully improvised set cued by interpretive audience suggestions submitted via text and displayed on screens across the venue; some highlights from this year’s field of audience directives were “Party on a beach in Morocco,” “Lights dictate the jam,” “Just learned how to play last week” and “Play your favorite song,” which somehow elicited Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Puff, the Magic Dragon.”
The sextet wrapped night one with an All Night Wrong set, collecting some of its fan-favorite repeat covers and digging deep in its discography for long-lost gems. This set was composed almost entirely of bust-outs, as the band revived Yes’ “Roundabout,” Steely Dan’s “Kid Charlemagne,” Stone Temple Pilots’ “Plush” and “Hunger Strike” (performed for the third and second time, respectively) and finally the set third-ever staging of The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Big Poppa.” After this riotous show closer, Umphrey’s came back to put a cherry on top with an encore of Rush’s “Tom Sawyer.”
UM built on this sky-high excitement on Saturday, April 27, first by proving its cinematic reference catalog to be just as deep as its famously vast canon of music references. After taking the stage, the band erupted into a “Live Scoring Set,” in which it jammed along to projections of clips from Nosferatu, Pulp Fiction, The Blues Brothers, Interstellar, Caddyshack and more. Next, the group brought on an “All New Set,” featuring a debut cover of Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing” and “House of Better Glass,” a new mash-up of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” House of Pain’s “Jump Around” and Tame Impala’s “The Less I Know the Better.” This set also spotlighted first-time original stagings of 2022’s Asking For a Friend closer “Work Sauce” and “Concessions,” a hybrid of three memorable “Jimmy Stewarts.”
The final performance of UMBowl X was a “Choose Your Own Adventure” set, in which the audience voted live for which songs they would like to hear within a six-track string of classics; somewhere along the way, bassist Ryan Stasik opted to smash frontman Brendan Bayliss’ acoustic guitar onstage. After this uniquely democratic set, the band brought out one final movie clip, pairing a scene from Top Gun with a debut cover of Harold Faltermeyer’s original theme for the film and merging into “1348” for one last surprise.
Umphrey’s McGee will perform again on May 16 at Fayetteville, Ark.’s JJ’s Live, running directly into its spring-summer tour. For more information on upcoming engagements, visit umphreys.com/tour/
Watch UM’s Top Gun tribute below.
The post Watch: Umphrey’s McGee Present UMBowl X, with Debuts, Bust-Outs, Fan-Guided Jams and ‘Top Gun’ appeared first on Relix Media.
