Photo by Jay Blakesberg
Coming up in October & November 2013, Yonder Mountain String Band appears at select venues and music festivals in the Deep South, Midwest and Northeast, including Greenfield Amphitheater (Wilmington, NC; October 9), Amos’ Southend (Charlotte, NC; October 10), The Georgia Theater (Athens, GA; October 11), Track 29 (Chattanooga, TN; October 13), The Lyric (Oxford, MS; October 16), Harvest Fest (Ozark, AR; October 17-19), Turner Hall Ballroom (Milwaukee, WI; October 23), First Avenue (Minneapolis, MN; October 24), House of Blues(Chicago, IL; October 25 & 26), Brooklyn Bowl (Brooklyn, NY; October 29 & 30), Theatre of Living Arts (Philadelphia, PA; October 31), House of Blues (Boston, MA; November 1), and the State Theater (Portland, ME; November 2). Please see the full schedule of YMSB’s upcoming tour dates listed below. YMSB is available for interviews, and hi-res photos are available upon request.
YMSB pulls out all the stops for this year’s Harvest Festival (Mulberry Mountain: Ozark, Arkansas) as they host the three-day event for the fourth time, from October 17 – 19, 2013. YMSB rounds up some of today’s biggest names in bluegrass, folk and Americana, an array of lauded singer-songwriters and standout festival-circuit favorites including Tedeschi Trucks Band, Les Claypool’s Duo de Twang, Railroad Earth,Beats Antique, JJ Grey & MOFRO, Kacey Musgraves and Justin Townes Earle just to name a few. Home to two nationally celebrated music festivals — Harvest Festival and Wakarusa — Mulberry Mountain stands as one of the country’s most remote and scenic live music venues. Promoters intentionally cap out the festival’s attendance at 8,500 (instead of 40,000 maximum capacity) in order to maintain the intimate experience and appeal of the annual event. Harvest Fest takes place during the peak of the annual fall foliage in the lush Ozark Mountains — the perfect setting for a mind-blowing end of season affair.
For the second year-in-a-row, YMSB hosts “Strings & Sol” from December 11 – 15, 2013 at the Now Sapphire Resort in Puerto Morelos, Mexico. Performing alongside YMSB, other epic string bands includes Railroad Earth, Leftover Salmon, Keller Williams w/ The Travelin’ McCourys, and Greensky Bluegrass. Come spend your days swimming and lounging by pristine blue waters, participating in activities with various band members and exploring the Mayan Riviera. Each night, standout string bands perform multiple shows on the beautiful beach at Now Sapphire. All performances, as well as all you can eat and drink are included in the cost of accommodations. For more information, please visit:www.stringsandsol.com.
YMSB returns to the Boulder Theater (Boulder, CO) in December 2013 for four shows to ring in 2014. Special guests will be announced in the coming weeks, and tickets are now available for purchase through Yonder Ticketing.
It’s not often you hear of a neo-bluegrass band breaking into the national spotlight with a performance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, tour dates with Dave Matthews, and selling out 9,000 seat venues (i.e. Red Rocks Amphitheater). Yonder Mountain String Band is clearly the exception to the rule, having performed in front of 250,000 fans over the past year and acquiring more than 175,000 “Likes” on their Facebook page. Now in their 14th year as a group, Yonder continues to sell-out top music venues across the country including The Fillmore(San Francisco, CA), Red Rocks Amphitheater (Denver, CO), Pepsi Center (Denver, CO), Best Buy Theater (NYC), Stubb’s (Austin, TX), House of Blues (Chicago, IL) and others.
Yonder Mountain String Band is comprised of Adam Aijala (guitar, vocals), Jeff Austin (mandolin, vocals), Dave Johnston (banjo, vocals) andBen Kaufmann (bass, vocals). With the band having one of the strongest touring bases in the industry, fans and critics alike have been drawn to both their live shows and singular studio albums. Reporting from the All Good Music Festival (2009), journalist Jarrett Bellini from CNN Showbiz Tonight notes, “The trophy for best musical set goes to Yonder Mountain String Band who, as the sun began to set, left it all on the stage for an hour and a half. The pickers from Colorado had the audience dancing and shaking, kicking up a joyful storm of dust into the cool summer sky.”
Commenting on their latest studio recording The Show, Rolling Stone critic Will Hermes says, “The concept is great: liberate bluegrass’ hot-shit riffing and blue-sky harmonies from its hidebound formalism and see where it flies. This Boulder, CO crew brings dazzling chops to the table.” Produced by rock producer Tom Rothrock (Beck, Foo Fighters), The Show marks Yonder’s second go around with Rothrock and their fifth studio album released on their independent label, Frog Pad Records. Featuring the band backed by Elvis Costello’s sideman Pete Thomas on drums on six tracks, The Show includes 14 original compositions written by various band members. This fall, YMSB showcases newly written material that’ll be featured on a new studio EP due out in 2013, as well as songs from The Show and their extensive catalogue.
Yonder has always played music by its own design. Bending bluegrass, rock and countless other influences, they’ve come to pioneer a sound that they alone could only champion. With a traditional lineup of instruments, they may appear to be a traditional bluegrass band at first glance but they’ve taken the customary old-timey instrumentation (sans the fiddle) to new heights, transcending any single genre. Yonder has become a regular performer at major music festivals like the iconic Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Northwest String Summit and DelFest as well as massive multi-stage events like Austin City Limits Festival, Bonnaroo and Rothbury.
For more information on Yonder Mountain String Band, please visit www.yondermountain.com.
Yonder Mountain String Band Tour Dates:
10/9 – Wilmington, NC – Greenfield Amphitheater
10/10 – Charlotte, NC – Amos’ Southend
10/11 – Athens, GA – The Georgia Theater
10/12 – Silk Hope, NC – Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival
10/13 – Chattanooga, TN – Track 29
10/16 – Oxford, MS – The Lyric
10/17 – 10/19 – Ozark, AK – Mulberry Mountain Harvest Music Festival
10/23 – Milwaukee, WI – Turner Hall Ballroom
10/24 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
10/25 & 10/26 – Chicago, IL – House of Blues
10/29 & 10/30 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Bowl
10/31 – Philadelphia, PA – Theatre of Living Arts
11/1 – Boston, MA – House of Blues
11/2 – Portland, ME – State Theater
12/11 – 12/14 – Puerto Morelos, Mexico – Strings & Sol
12/27 – 12/31 – Boulder, CO – Boulder Theater
