Little Brother’s Columbus OH: August 28, 2002
Umphrey’s McGee’s second time in Columbus, on a Wednesday night, they play a couple rare songs including an abbreviated Nachos for Two they and experiment with JaJunk again, after The Haunt, with the impending debut coming in about a week.
Notable:
Set 1 is a Padgett’s Profile sandwich; it’s cool to see them playing with splitting songs up with other ones in between, and this one as a full set is interesting.
Push the Pig and The Tripe Wide sit at the beginning of the show, introducing the two “new” songs to the Columbus audience. The Triple Wide feels like it has a little more improvisational exploration this time, still no full improv jam.
In Violation of Yes, which they are playing it a lot these days, is a great jazzy instrumental that highlights the musicianship of all the band members, especially Joel and Ryan.
After In Violation of Yes, Mike says “this next one’s called Ringo. They are introducing some of their classic songs like they’re new, since it’s possibly a new audience in Columbus, being only their second time there.
Nachos for Two is the title in the original taper setlist at archive.org, but allthings.umphreys.com calls it Rondo Alla Turca, played only 4 times in 02-04. That title refers to a Mozart piece translated “Turkish March” and it’s a fully classical piece. That title sure sounds like “Nachos for Two” phonetically, which makes me wonder if that’s where the Nachos for Two title came from. This version is a full band composition of Mozart’s Turkish March, but the full Nachos for Two song is a progressive rock/jazz instrumental piece that contains the Turkish March inside it. Nachos was played 92 times from 98-01 and once each in 02 and 03. Only once with Kris, 11-1-03, day after Halloween in Kalamazoo, where Joel is introduced afterwards as “Yanni Hammer” which the band explains is a play on Yani and Yan Hammer, who wrote the Miami Vice theme. The last performance with Mike was 4-22-02 (ending only) and the only one in 2002. Why don’t they play it anymore? Ask Jimmy (Nachos for All: @UMfacts on Twitter).
Bust out: Scott Joplin’s ragtime piece Maple Leaf Rag has not been played in 3 years; 6-30-99 but was teased recently on 8-17-02 in the banter after Padgett’s. It’s a Joel centerpiece being a ragtime piano composition.
Professor Wormbog is a simple version and it doesn’t have the Motown Philly tease, although they have started playing it in recent shows. I’m still not sure exactly it was that they first teased Motown Philly by the Boyz 2 Men.
The jam out of The Haunt has another JaJunk exploration, with pieces of JaJunk again for the third time in the last couple of shows. It’s leading up to the debut in about a week at Mishawaka on September 6, 2002.
In Blue Echo there’s haven’t been any up-tempo segments, where they play the opening riff at double-speed. There haven’t been any up-tempo Blue Echo segments that I’ve heard during the Umph20 listening project yet, but I’m curious to know when they started doing that, I’ll keep an ear out for it.
Setlist from allthings.umphreys.com
Set 1:
Padgett’s Profile > Push the Pig > The Triple Wide, In Violation of Yes[1], Ringo, Muff II: The Revenge, Rondo Alla Turca, Jam > Pay the Snucka[2], All In Time-> Padgett’s Profile
Set 2:
“Jimmy Stewart”-> 2×2, Professor Wormbog > Walletsworth, The Haunt[3], Blue Echo-> Last Call, Syncopated Strangers, Waiting Room, Der Bluten Kat[4]
Encore:
Maple Leaf Rag, Kat’s Tune-> Hurt Bird Bath
Footnotes:
[1] with Star Wars Main Theme (John Williams) tease
[2] part III only
[3] with Norwegian Wood (The Beatles) jams and Dear Prudence (The Beatles) teases
[4] with Steve Sweney on guitar and Jake on JP-8000
Show Notes:
last Maple Leaf Rag 1999-06-30 (378 shows)
with Linus and Lucy (Vince Guaraldi) tease after Muff II: the Revenge
with Birthday (The Beatles) tease before Syncopated Strangers
Links to Audio
The Live Music Archive app (iOS) and the Taper’s Section app (Android) is a great way to find and listen to these shows. You can stream, download for offline listening, save favorites, and mark shows as already listened to. The app pulls all data directly from the public repository of live music recordings posted at archive.org.
