Opera House: Leftover Salmon, 12/17 & 18

11 Mar Opera House: Leftover Salmon, 12/17 & 18

Leftover Salmon appears in concert at Telluride’s Sheridan Opera House. Shows are Thursdays & Friday, March 17 & 18. Door 8:30 p.m.; show, 9 p.m. Tickets are $32, general admission; $42 reserved balcony seating.* ($5 more at the door.) Tickets on sale here or by calling 970-728-6363 ext. 5, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day (and then some) with the Sheridan Arts Foundation: jam-grass favorites (and Telluride Bluegrass regulars) Leftover Salmon play Telluride’s historic Sheridan Opera House, March 17-18, 2016. 

Looking back over the past 25 years of rootsy, string-based music, the impact of Leftover Salmon is impossible to deny. Formed in Boulder at the end of 1989, the Colorado slamgrass pioneers took their form of aggressive bluegrass to rock and roll bars at a time when that practice was outside the norm. And it worked: Salmon become a pillar of the jam band scene and unwitting architects of the jamgrass genre.

Today, Leftover Salmon is Vince Herman (vocals, acoustic guitar, washboard); Drew Emmitt (vocals, acoustic and electric mandolin, electric guitar, fiddle); Andy Thorn (vocals, acoustic and electric banjo); Greg Garrison (vocals, acoustic and electric bass); and Alwyn Robinson (drums).

Though the lineup has changed through the years, the foundation of Leftover Salmon remains strongly rooted in the relationship between co-founders Emmitt, Herman, and banjoist, Mark Vann, proceeding through a decade of constant growth and nonstop touring. However, on March 4, 2002, Vann lost his battle with cancer at only 39-years-old. And Herman issued the following statement in memoriam: “Mark lived life to its fullest and he would insist that we do so as well.” 

Leftover Salmon stopped touring at the end of 2004. Had the group never played another note, their legacy would have been secure. But in the summer of 2007, the band were ready to hit the road again. Soon after, banjo phenom Andy Thorn was brought onboard anda new album, Aquatic Hitchhiker, (2012) was recorded and released to critical acclaim, with NPR’s Mountain Stage, for instance, heralding the group as “one of the most beloved acts on America’s summer-festival circuit.” 

Said Drew Emmitt of the band’s resumption, “The time is right for this band to come back on a lot of levels. It’s taken us a little while, but I think we’re finally there.” 

On September 15, 2014 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, TN, Herman announced a brand new long player, High Country, set for release on November 28, Black Friday, initially to participating Record Store Day indie outlets nationwide.

High Country is a 12-song, rock/country/bluegrass/blues masterpiece, featuring 10 spanking new Salmon offerings, including Thorn’s rollicking title track complete with requisite blistering banjo solo, Herman’s Cajun-flavored kick off, “Get Up And Go,” but also sporting two covers- a Payne/Robert Hunter tune,“Bluegrass Pines,” and a Lowell George/Keith Godchaux classic, “Six Feet Of Snow,” immortalized on Little Feat’s, Down On The Farm. Then there’s Emmitt’s progressive ramble n’ roll, “Two Highways,” destined to become a Salmon classic. All in all, High Country slips seamlessly in and out of character, disposition and style offering the full palette of Leftover Salmon’s aesthetic, from lightening-powered pick n’ grin to thoughtful blues balladry and all stops in between. The record’s a classic, if we’ve ever heard one.

And so is Leftover Salmon, a classic and first-class in every way.

Telluride favorites for sure.

*nominal ticketing fee applies.

For a preview of the Opera House show, listen to this from High Country:

The Sheridan Arts Foundation was founded in 1991 as a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization to preserve the historic Sheridan Opera House as an arts and cultural resource for the Telluride community, to bring quality arts and cultural events to Telluride and to provide local and national youth with access and exposure to the arts through education. The Sheridan Arts Foundation is sponsored in part by grants from the Telluride Foundation, CCAASE and Just For Kids.