Hello everyone. I
hope you are enjoying this crispy fall weather we are having. It has been an absolute beautiful if rather warm
September. I have been in Vermont for 2 months now and things are starting to
come together. I am working around 40 hours a week at Price Chopper supermarket
doing produce. I am in charge of the greens wall, which includes everything
green, plus peppers and mushrooms. Yes, I am the head mushroom guy lol. This
job will give me the experience I need to get into the City Market Coop. I am
also working about 10 to 15 hours a week at Big Lots running the cash register.
It gives me money handling experience and Point of Sale experience. I need that
to get into the medicinal dispensary or more likely a regular old dispensary
once it is legalized up here. So I have
a plan and am executing it, rather than being executed financially.
It also just so
happens that my work schedule is rather incredible. There is no delivery on Wednesday
at PC so I have off. And nearly every Tuesday is Dead Set at Nectar’s. And it
has been some unfucking believable good music. Different bands, playing
different styles of the Dead. I have seen more good music in the last month
than I have since college back in the 90’s.
And to celebrate
2 months here, it just so happened that NE PA’s favorite bluegrass band Cabinet
is playing at the Higher Ground in South Burlington. And here is the
transplanted Pennslytuckian’s take on the show and the scene. Cabinet. Live at
the Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, Sept. 30, 2017.
The day after the
show was my first day off in 12 days, so I was really ready to rage. Caught an
Uber and my driver was a recent immigrant from Libya. He said the first winter
here he didn’t leave his apartment. Just looked out the window and watched the
people walk through the snow. He also never saw snow before. I must say I love
the diversity of Burlington. In my neighborhood, there are Bhutanese, Tibetans,
and a lot of Africans. The Association of Africans Living in Vermont meets at
the school by my apartment.
So I got to the
show and they hadn’t started yet. I struck up a conversation with a guy and
three female friends came over to greet him. The three women were Pappy’s
(banjo player in Cabinet) sisters. They did not like my Steelers hat but I was
representing PA that night. I also meet Keith, the archivist for the band and a
VT head I will just call Ph. He said he saw Phish a lot when they were just a bar
band. He also said he had 80 tapes of his in the Phish vault including the
Livephish release of 8/26/89. How crazy is that? But then it was show time!!
Cabinet, Live at the Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, Sept 30.
2017
Cool River>Treesap>Heavy Rain, Ain’t Gonna Work
Tomorrow, Mysterio>Arco Arena#, The Distance#, Bottom of the Sea, Oh Darlin’,
Miss Molly*, Catfish John*, Po’s Reel, Gumboots, Caroline>Shined Like the
Sun, Shady Grove*
Encore: Easy Wind
# Without JP
*With Justin Mazer on guitar
You can stream it
here
Incredibly, I have
seen Pappy perform with 3 different bands in the last 2 weeks. He was in Groundhog,
the one-time only all-star band that played the after show party at Metronome (the
club above Nectar’s). It was after Trey’s closing set at the Grand North Point.
Then this past Tuesday, he was at the Dead Set and that was amazing. He lives in Vergennes so I am more of a local
than him lol.
The show was outstanding, full of my favs. Loved
the distortion on the fiddle during Heavy Rain. They really stretched out Isn’t
Gonne Work. Another highlight was Catfish John. Gumboots was cool as that is
one of the tunes I saw them do at my first show. My favorite part of the show
was the serious tease of I Know You Rider in Caroline. I was talking to someone
and said Sorry, I need to rock out to this. Listen for the Slipknot teases in
Caroline. The Easy Wind encore was the perfect ending to the show. It was a
hell of a process to get up here but I am settled and I LOVE BURLINGTON!
Dave Kemp
BA American Studies
PhD Rock and Roll
