Umphrey’s earlier this year- photo by Brad Hodge

Fair warning to you that what you are about to read is an incredibly biased review. I really have no way to be objective about the show Umphrey’s McGee put on recently at the Great South Bay Music festival. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to think I can be objective about the music of any given band on any given night but sometimes place matters. You see, I have lived all of my life, save for my college years, on the south shore of Long Island. The Great South Bay looms large in my memories of growing up. I swam in its waters as a child, partied on it shores through my teens, and stared at its expanse in contemplation as an adult more times that I care to admit. So a few months ago, when it was announced that Umphrey’s McGee would headline the second night of the festival, I almost passed out in joy. Seeing any band I admire in a bay front venue 15 minutes from where I live is valhalla for a native Long Island music lover, akin to hosting a party in your backyard with a favorite band. It’s the sort of opportunity that is exceedingly rare as good music never seems to travel past the Nassau /Suffolk line.

Simply, the band could have come out and played an hour and a half jazz odyssey and I probably would have positively reviewed it. Not a jazz odyssey in the Umphrey’s set list lexicography too but more a Spinal Tap-esque one.

Fortunately no such thing happened. It never ceases to amaze me how professional and motivated Umphrey’s McGee is. No matter what the conditions they are a band that seemingly wants to kill every time I have seen them play, no matter what the scene is like.

And it was a scene. Any random snapshot of 30 odd faces in the crowd would have yielded a close approximation to the cover of “Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band.” A mix suburban families, native lawnguylanders (yes, the stereotypical ones), hippies young and old, AARP guys night out types, bikers, tweens and little kids running around with cheap light saber knock off’s roamed the beat down outfield in front of the stage. All of them, milling about, lit up by the floodlights of the middle ball field cast an eerie glow in front of the main stage field as the band played. A Saturday night at the Aragon Ballroom this was not.

And yet it never showed in the performance or demeanor of the band. Highlights abound throughout the two hour single set. “August,” a longtime staple, morphed into a delay laden, electro fuzz exploration that is a must hear sixteen minutes of cohesive improvisation. Note perfect covers of ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses” and Sir Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” seemed to endear them to portion of the crowd that clearly stumbled upon the show. It was downright fun to see the natives get down to that band with a funny name. “Wappy Sprayberry” slinked its way into “Hourglass,” the fluid transition’s sound warped by the stiff, humid breeze blowing off the bay which provided natures counterpart to the equally warped improve emanating from the band.

The coup de grace came appropriately during the final song of the encore, “Mulche’s Odyssey.” Again, not for objective reasons, but because I had been roaming the house and mumbling its introductory guitar riff for the better part of the afternoon in a fit of schoolboy excitement before departing for the show. Sometimes it’s personal, and maybe it’s just me, but it was the best damn version of the song they have ever played.