After funk jam band Pigeons Playing Ping Pong opened its first set at The Peach Festival at The Pavilion at Montage in Scranton on Thursday with a 10-minute version of “Funk E Zekiel,” singer Greg Ormont addressed the audience that had just given the band a rapturous response.
“Yeah, we’re gonna have some fun tonight,” he said. “I think so.”
And with that, he captured the essence of opening night.
Peach Fest, with its origins as an Allman Brothers-curated event, has always been carefree in the way that jam festivals are. But its also had the Allmans’ Southern rock undercurrent, and in the past couple of years the darker feeling loss after the Allmans split and Gregg Allman died.
Opening night for this year again had that positive vibe, and the choice of performers was a big reason.
Pigeons Playing Ping Pong played two sets – as will be the format of the festival, with The String Cheese Incident playing two sets tonight (Friday, July 26), Trey Anastasio Band two sets Saturday and Phil Lesh & Friends two sets on closing night Sunday.
“We’re Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, and we’re getting ready to burn down this pa-pa-pa-pavilion,” Ormont said to open the band’s six-song, 75-minute set.
The second song, “Fortress,” also was fun, and whimsical, with its calypso rhythm. And yet, it also displayed just how talented, and precise, the band’s players are. But mostly fun.
The 14-minute “Melting Lights,” which morphed into “Off Shoot,” was more typically jam, and it got more of the crowd – probably 18,000 or so, surprisingly full for opening night – jamming to it. The energy was shared by the band, and Ormont did a splayed-leg jump at the end of it.
“Off Shoot” was light and progressive – with an almost world-music feel.
“Starting to catch that vibe, ya’ll” Ormont said. “Ready to have some fun?”
For “Burning Up My Time,” the band brought out earlier performer Billy Strings to play on it, and the crowd gave it the appreciation it deserved, cheering its 11-minute jam.
The song perhaps best displayed what Pigeons Playing Ping Pong brings to the jam genre – a pop element that makes it far more accessible and (again) fun.
The band’s tour de force was the set-closing “Poseidon,” which was very much in that pop-jam vein. In fact, in the middle of the song, the band morphed into a great, four-minute, pretty true version of Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” – Ormont doing an impressive impersonation of David Byrne’s vocals.
That showed just how accessible the music is.
(The band’s second set, which started at midnight, stretched to full or part versions of 14 songs.)
The String Cheese Incident’s penultimate set was similarly upbeat and just as accessible.
But guitarist Bill Nershi did dedicate its opening song, a 10-minute version of “Restless Wind,” to “all the people in The Allman Brothers who have passed on. They put their heart and soul into the music for so long.”
That song, as with much of the band’s set, showed the group’s Grateful Dead influence, with the addition of bluegrass (especially fiddle) and country, such as the twinkling piano on “Shine,” which stretched 25 minutes.
Billy Strings’ set was eclectic but had something for virtually everyone. He and his band played a wonderful bluegrass version of Blackfoot’s “Train Train” that was jammy, but also focused. Especially impressive was the fast-picked mandolin of Jarrod Walker.
The jam-focused crowd roared its approval – and danced.
The Stanley Brothers’ “Nobody’s Love’s Like Mine,” was more traditional bluegrass, but no less impressive for its playing.
On an 18-minute “All Fall Down,” Strings’ band played psychedelic bluegrass – with a midsection like Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.”
Strings wound down the 90-minute, 14-song set with an excellent “Taking Water,” then closed with “Love Comes Rolling Down” and “Meet Me at the Creek.”
The crowd loved him, and he made a good opening for the festival.
Groove-rock band Aqueous opened the day.
After playing with Billy Strings during Pigeon Playing Ping Pong’s first set, Ormont gave the audience his assessment of the pairing – and in doing so captured the feeling of the festival’s first day.
“We all like making new friends and pushing it to the limit,” he said. “We mash it all together here at The Peach.”
Morning Call Lehigh Valley Music reporter and columnist John J. Moser can be reached at 610-820-6722 or jmoser@mcall.com
