Punch Brothers
You have to give mandolin wizard Chris Thile plenty of credit for possessing such brain-razing talent—he was giving Sam Bush a serious run for his money on the Telluride stage when he was still a teenager—yet maintaining his aw-shucks nice-guy appeal. For last year’s set, the Punch Brothers played Thile’s modernist “Blind Leaving the Blind” suite, a remarkably musical but abstruse series of intricate tinkles and skronks that proved impenetrable to some listeners. This year, the Brothers P kept it country on the main stage, saving their more adventurous side for Sunday night’s NightGrass performance in town, an evening of nothing but—get this—Radiohead covers. (Would love to be there, but it’s sold out; plus, it overlaps with the Telluride House Band on the main stage. The bootleg for that show is already a classic, and they haven’t even played the gig yet.)
Thile is probably the best instrumentalist here outside of Bela and Toumani, and his solos today had strangers shaking their heads at each other in disbelief. The band played songs by their bluegrass heroes, like Seldom Scene, Nashville Bluegrass Band, Tony Rice, and others; they’re dressed in suits and singing harmonies into a single mic. The rain fell steadily during their entire set. At one point, Chris asked the crowd how miserable they were on a scale of one to ten. The fans yelled in near-unison, “Zero!!” It was a testament to the talent on stage, a band that has outplayed any other so far this weekend, although Chris said, “I’m sure there are somes sixes or sevens out there, but we’re just not hearing from them.”
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