Molly Tuttle (With All New Band) And The California Honeydrops Concert @ Ford Amp In Vail ~ Plus A Day @ The Vail Mtn Games With S&P In The Rain 06Jun25

Denver Family Gathering... Kala & I and headed to Denver for dinner with the family on Fri on our way to Summit Co. We had a fun stop at the fairly new Monolith Brewing before dining to too much excellent Indian food at Tikka & Grill. We were in the Platte Park area to stop at Levitt Pavilion to see a free concert featuring the Comatose Brothers. Yoho came up too. We ultimately bailed on the concert because of constant rain ~ Jim toughed out some sets though! He mentioned the sound is solid and the opening act, Cousin Curtiss, was very good. We drove out to Summit earlier than planned but the weather improved as we got into the Rockies proper.

S&P @ The Nest... S&P came out to the Nest for a day of fun in Vail. I made tasty breakfast burros before the ride out to Vail but soon enough we were tooling over Vail Pass into Eagle County. We parked in normal Vail Village parking underground (in case the pending weather shift might attack Kala's car) about 10:45. A cool slackline demo was going on in the main village square and we stopped for a pop at the VBC Taproom above that. The Japanese team members were amazing acrobats, they might've deterred some local athletes from competing though. The team moved on to the Dog Park with a 20min walk and only Scooter & I caught the last race; the golden won. We headed back east on my lead to the climbing wall and saw the qualifiers for the Colorado Regionals of USA Climbing... cool.

VBC Again... We made it back to the Gore Ck area for a time-adjusted rez at Mountain Standard, one of my favored restaurants in Vail. Great lunch-dinner with a fine bottle of wine selected by our leader of de vin, Scooter of Oklahoma. The early dinner allowed a full viewing of the quaterfinals in play boating in "the hole" on Gore Ck. Competitor were so cold in the snowmelt-engorged Gore Ck but they were amazing in their Jacksons. Both Juniors and Womens were amazing, with clear "bests" in each... but we'd had enough of 45° and rain and headed back to VBC for more warmth and brews. The women dusted the boys in a weird numerological dice game of luck, but nobody chugged except Scooter & me. We waited out the storm again and headed to queue for decent seats at Ford Amp @ 5:30pm.

Awesome Concert... We didn't even queue and got awesome seats in slight right center row 9. Upside was sitting next to cool DEN couple with strong music appreciation skills. SD, CA-based Band of Gringos opened the show ~ ok. They did have a drone and a pilot for same deployer through the whole show (see him back left in the image).

2nd up were the fabulous California Honeydrops... They have a killer lead and cool horn/sax section, with 2 drum sets. Lyrics were simple, music was not... sounded like a fav from Detroit from long ago, 4 Tops at times. They were completely excellent live with 40s, funk, R&B, etc all laced through a bunch of guys but the lead vocals were hot. Very cool show.

Headliner Molly Tuttle... You all know me though, I bought tix to see Molly Tuttle's latest. And fortuitous "latest" it was as MT introduced an all new, all female band this night ~ the first time ever heard! Vail Ford Amp was the 1st show from the new band who'll play her pre-announced new album for Aug25 drop (with killer house musicians of course), So Long Little Miss Sunshine. This was completely a brand new lineup and breakout show for MT in her post-bluegrass step, and we were there to absorb it. She and the new band (unnamed as yet to my awareness) debuted four new never released, never played in public originals this night, along with the one new album drop mentioned prior, 'That's Gonna Leave A Mark.' The set was awesome. The band was not as tight as the Grammy winning Golden Highway in their late game, yet, but dispatched themselves decently alongside a complete legend, already. She also played 8 recent releases from her catalog, but none from pre-bluegrass interestingly (like "Rise" or "If You're Ready") and the new team had learned those songs well enough. They looked happy AF to play with MT, and were skilled. They'll be individual stars soon enough by association and selection. Nice for them; I'm sure these were tough interviews and  auditions... this is one of the hardest working artists I know, she's not gonna allow slack. The new band features a new harmony team of fiddler/mandolin/backing vocals from X, bass/backing vocals from Y, dobro & melodies from Z, and percussion from Q.

So good, MT can play her catalog like no other; she can play & sing iconic covers from NorCal. I really wanna know what's next. She tossed her wig on the title track of "So Long Little Miss Sunshine" played publicly for the 1st time ever. Cool... what's next? Listen to the show from a pro recorder with rights ~ he's got better and more complete coverage... 1st three are new.