Freakin' Fabulous @ Fox ~ Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway 27Feb22

Wow. Yoho and I caught Molly Tuttle at Fox Theater in Boulder Sunday. She's touring in support of a new album Crooked Tree due April Fools Day 2022. The tour dates are madness - she's a very hard-working lady. The material seems awesome and on the record she hosts a killer set of collaborators for her new songs, as well as her new band. She and the band Golden Highway (a collective of wickedly skilled bluegrass musicians) were fabulous; arrangements were tight and the sound @ Fox was very good. Showing off her mad skills, writing prowess, powerful voice and spectacular musical range, the new material is mostly a return to bluegrass - and so the band was staffed with all acoustics and very good artists including Bronwyn Keith-Hynes on scorching fiddle, cousin Kyle Tuttle on well-versed and versatile banjo, Molly on lead & guitar, Shelby Means on bass & sweet backing sounds and CO guy Dominick Leslie on mandolin. We were excited to see her in the more apt setting of a theater with a full set spanning an hour and 40 minutes of material. We arrived right on time with close parking "on the hill" in Boulder after a fun weekend and a fine meal with friends (more later on those). The all vaxed patrons of this "over 21" show could have been over 55 really as almost everyone were blue-hairs and everyone was civil, appreciative, and un-masked. Yoho and I sought great positioning for viewing, but mostly sound, and secured a rail right behind the mixing booth.. it even allowed me to scoop the setlist. It worked very well and the mixing guy had us dialed in. Local folk artist Jack Cloonan (not on pre-show billing and might've been picked up at Winter Wondergrass days earlier) opened the show with a strong band including mandolin, bass and bongos accompanying him and his songs and guitar. They were fun and good but we were in for an even bigger treat.

I need to repeat that Golden Highway was good but Molly Tuttle was spectacular and the show was rapid-fire, high energy, bluegrass and alike, through a great playlist all featuring the superstar skills and songs of Molly Tuttle. My fav in the new stuff is The River Knows but so many new songs were very good; we'd heard some dropped before the show but so many we heard tonight are unreleased. Added to the new stuff were great previously published MT songs like "Light Came In," and others - plus she did some popular covers from the pandemic album including "Olympia, WA" and "She's A Rainbow." They did one "weird" song with Cloonan and closed on a new cool single-mic setup for 3 good songs. I'm so glad to have been there and with my oft partner in concert endeavors, Jimbo, was a boon.

So here's the bonus segment of this entry. Molly Tuttle dropped many unreleased originals at our show. Sure they're on her new album but here's her song "Grass Valley" concerning her 10 yr old self becoming a music devotee. I captured her bluegrass/country story completely in lofi. So good.

This great finish to the weekend though started with a fun couple of days with the ladies in Denver. We met up at the sweet Yohanan condo downtown and went to a showing of the Academy nominated short documentaries at SIE (Jim & Mary are now members)... the films were all good and thought provoking, though also sometimes depressing reviews of less opportunity-rich lives (yeah... I perhaps should have said privileged but I fear some anti-CRTs might come after me). Of course we followed that with a great dinner at the French restaurant Le Bilboquet that night. We hit the rooftop spa on Sunday before grabbing tasty breakfast at Ivy on 7th then a walk around Wash Pk on a much weather-improved day. Before the concert, Jim & I met up will T&L @ Jill's in Boulder for a nice dinner and good discussion - where I learned how to self-repair a paint scuff on the Crusher Too from the mightily self-taught-&-skilled Wilks. Gr8 weekend with Gr8 friends capped by a Gr8 concert.