by Kate Langenburg

Created on: November 15, 2008

Last Friday, the Sherman Theater welcomed the jam band Umphrey's McGee to Stroudsburg, making them the fourth jam band to visit the town in the last two months.

Honestly, although I was excited to review the show, I wasn't expecting that I'd be too impressed by the band's stage performance. I had seen them three years earlier at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee

and they didn't put on a fantastic show. But, boy, was I ever wrong about last week's show. It reaffirmed my belief that you can't fully judge a band just by one show and sparked a new found love for their music.

The genres of music Umprey's McGee incorporates into their songs are vast. Over the span of show, I heard rock, reggae, metal, funk, soul, hardcore, and classic rock. With these genres, they create a sound unlike a lot of jam bands in music today. They might play something with a jam feel, and then switch unexpectedly to a few minutes of music with a punk or metal influence with a double bass that is so loud it feels like your heart will pop out of your chest through the vibrations in the floor. I was quite convinced that I heard a minute of what sounded like the opening to the Dead Kennedy's song "Police Truck" in one of their songs.

But besides all their musical influences, they seem to jam more than they sing. Of course there are lyrics to most of their songs, but you can tell that what they really like to do is jam as much as they possibly can. When they start to jam, they break out a variety of strange instruments, like a synthesizer, to create off-the-wall sounds in those songs. As for the other instruments, I had no clue what they were, but I thought of instruments you might read about in a Dr. Suess book whistlers, bamboozles, poppers, and dazzlers.

Umphrey's McGee's music was also accompanied by a great light show, much like at the moe. show at the Sherman Theater last month. Lasers of blue, red, and green lights flew over the audience, illuminating parts of the group for a second, and then whipped around to different parts of the venue. I could tell that the theater put in a lot of effort to create the effects.

The band threw a couple of cover songs into their set list last week, as well. They played Billy Joel's "The Stranger" as well as the Allman Brothers Band's hit song "Jessica." A side note on this song I saw the Allman Brothers perform the song last August. While they played "Jessica," the song was sloppy and tired. Umphrey's McGee covered the song better than the Allman Brothers played it live. The rhythms were held together and everything sounded clean and crisp, not to mention it made everyone in the venue dance.

All in all, the show was a huge success. I could tell by looking around the venue that everyone was enjoying the band's music. Old, young, and even the really young came out to see the concert, and they certainly weren't let down.

If you would like information about upcoming shows at the Sherman Theater, visit www.shermantheater.com.
By the way, kudos to the Sherman
for booking great shows lately.

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