Review: Fleck & Hornsby

Photos by Rich Sugg/The Star

Anyone who doubts there’s an appetite for instrumental music and songwriting infused with jazz should have been at Crossroads KC on Friday night, where nearly 1,500 fans showed up to watch and hear Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers and Bela Fleck and the original version of his Flecktones.

Each band performed a set that slightly exceeded 90 minutes.  Each band leader sat in on the other’s set. And the show ended with a free-wheeling jam by both bands. 

During his set, Hornsby showcased his many facets: his voice, his other-worldly skills on the piano and his developing skills on the accordion and dulcimer. He opened with one from his days with the Range, “Another Day,” then “Spider Fingers,” which included several measures of Donavan’s “There Is A Mountain.”

The Noisemakers are a high-class rootsy bunch,  an ensemble that can evoke music that shifts seamlessly from jug band to jazzy blues to traditional Celtic. When Bobby Reed played flute during “The Road Not Taken,” they resembled the Chieftains.

Even during a pre-dusk swelter, Hornsby is a smooth and fluid front man, as at-ease on stage talking to his crowd and band mates as he is at the piano, where his talents are boundless.

Fleck joined him for two tunes, including “Shadow Hand,” one highlight from a  setlist that included “Space is the Place,” “Shadow Hand,” “White-Wheeled Limousine,” “Defenders of the Flag” and his closer, “The Valley Road.” That one, his last top 10 hit, goes way back to his days with the Range. Nearly 25 years later, he and the Noisemakers play with vigor and groove, like it was recorded last month, as if it were one of their own.

Fleck is touring with the band he founded in 1988 (the same year “Valley Road” was released, coincidentally): blues harpist Howard Levy, bassist Victor Wooten and his brother percussionist Roy “Futureman” Wooten, who showed off his own invention, the “drumitar,” an electronic drum shaped like a guitar. 

They took the crowd on an odyssey, more than 90 minutes of music that fused rock, bluegrass, country and jazz, including a Bill Monroe cover (“Little Maggie, “ I believe). Hornsby joined them on that one and on a couple others, including “Falani.” During one jam, the Wootens ripped off several measures of Stanley Clarke’s well-known, funky bass jam “School Days.” All night, Fleck gave an array of voices to the banjo, an instrument he has delivered from its backwood/hillbilly stereotype.

The Flecktones’ setlist at the soundboard read: “Bottle Rocket”;  “Sex in a Pan/Life in Eleven”; “Prickly Pear”; “Big Country”; “Sunset Road”;  “Sweet Pomegranates”; “Falani”; “Blu-Bop”;  “The Sinister Minister.”  

The final line on the setlist read: “Jam – all.” Next to that, the guy running the lights wrote “Ready for anything!!” That was a “note to self,” but it aptly describes what was on the agenda all night during an evening that proved music comprises many languages and can communicate profoundly in each, even without words.

| Timothy Finn, The Star

Comments

[KC Jones]

Man, I REALLY wanted to see this show, alas, finances would not allow it. Great to read a review and see some pics, though! Sounds like it was a great show.

[Randy Really]

1500 x 40 = $60,000 in ticket sales, for just one show, and they "do not make a dime"?

That $60,000 in revenuedoes not even include booze sales and they "do not make a dime"?

Not one single, solitary thin dime?
Oh really?

[mcbride]

seek therapy

[Therapsia]

Seek therapy?

You know needs therapy? The KC Star.

"Shots fired on the plaza" and there is not one singler story about it is in the Star?

seek therapy, news therapy

http://www.fox4kc.com/news/wdaf-police-respond-to-shots-fired-reports-at-plaza-20110724,0,5825769.story

[Nivek9]

So the band doesn't get paid Randy? There is overhead involved you know.... Staff to be paid, roadies, sound man, the band, security, etc...

This sounds like an excellent show. I wish I could have been there. I saw Bela Fleck at the VooDoo Lounge a while back and at a festival up at Liberty Memorial years ago. It had to have been a great show.

[Troll alert]

Randy=dump troll

[NEW]

Where does it say that some one is not making a dime? Where the heck is that coming from?

I'm glad this came up. Hornsby's sound man and road manager Caldwell is a long time buddy of mine. I caught up with him in Denver on Saturday night and asked about the arrangement at Grinders. Each band made around $18K or 60% of the gate which is more than payouts at most venues. The venue keeps 40% to cover expenses and keeps concession sales. In the case of Friday's show, every made plenty of money. But our pal Dump Troll will be happy to hear that neither Bruce not Bela were impressed with the venue. While other out door venues such as Starlight usually have these big ass out a'c units for the band, Grinder apparerntly does not. Imagine that!

[live music fan]

I would have loved to have gone to this show...and would have, if it had been at any other venue. I hope that CrossroadsKC goes out of business, because they take good shows away from real venues.

[Pellboy]

And for every moeny-making show like Fleck/Hornsby, Elvis Costello and others with a healthy audience, there are shows at the Crossroads that draw way more modest crowds so I'm guessing Mr.Edmondson's comments about their minimal profit margin had more to do with the overall season where it probably comes out to closer to a wash.

[RR]

He did not say "minimal profit margin".... he said the crossroadskc "have not made a dime" in 5 years* of running that no overhead horse corral.

PS
Thank you NEW for giving us the inside track, that is cool of you.

*maybe they have not made any "reported taxable profit".

[RR]

""Each band made around $18K or 60% of the gate which is more than payouts at most venues. The venue keeps 40% to cover expenses and keeps concession sales. ""

Thta is $24,000 revenue to cover expenses... what expenses?, there is no over head there.

and pellboy, if they pay a percentage to bands, there is no way to lose money on poor selling shows especially whne they are selling $4-$6.00 drink. That is $3-$5.00 profit per drink. Even if only 300 show up, that is boatlaod of money....to at least buy a big ass stage ac unit for the stage, but then agian, that is not the dump's style. comfort of bands/fans haHAAHAHAHAHhahahaha....... hahaahhhaaa..... whew... that was a good one.

I am not faulting a place for making money, I am faulting a place for not fixing that place up in over 5 years... while claiming/whining that "they do not make a dime"....

Mainly it is BS that they steal touring shows away from real venues, while acting like they are doing KC some big favor booking theese acts.... as if touring acts would not play KC if the dump was not there.

Someday this will resolve itself, it has to.

[tim finn]

Actually he said: "In our five seasons no one associated with the ownership of this venue has ever put one dime in their pockets."

That means whatever money has been made has been put back into the venue not into investors' bank accounts. And it surely has Because it's way better than it was the first year or two.

[RR]

Just curious, what exactly is "way better"?

I am NOT being a smart ass, I really wonder what they spent the 1-2 million Dollars, in show profits from the last 5 years, on?

[live music fan]

"I really wonder what they spent the 1-2 million Dollars on?"

They'll probably say the sound system or the lights or some other b.s. excuse, but that's stuff that you need to have in place before you open.

Also, was recording not allowed at this show? Tapers usually have shows online within a day or two, but these two sets haven't shown up on etree or the LMA yet.

[chi flat iron hair]

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