It’s a beautiful summer evening in the Bay Area here on Saturday, 17 August, and it’s a festive one as well, with guitar phenom Billy Strings in town for the first of two nights at the renowned Hearst Greek Theater on the UC-Berkeley campus. The 31-year-old virtuoso has been on quite a roll over the past few years, winning widespread acclaim for his energetic live performances that find him and his band moving up to larger venues with each tour.
Strings is on the tour trail with some big-time momentum after a historic harmonic convergence earlier in the month, when he sat in with Phish in his home state of Michigan on back-to-back nights as the Vermont jam rockers’ summer tour hit Grand Rapids for two shows on 6-7 August. Strings joined the influential quartet for extended performances deep in the second set of both shows, serving as a fifth band member on a diverse array of material. This ranged from smoking jams on cosmic funk Phish classics like “Moma Dance” and “Wolfman’s Brother”, to vibrant new songs like the title track from 2024’s Evolve album to a handful of bluegrass gems like “Beauty of My Dreams”, “Ginseng Sullivan” and “The Old Home Place”.
“Sitting in with Phish for the last two nights was nothing short of a surreal experience, like something out of one of my wildest dreams,” Strings wrote on Instagram afterward. He’s been living the dream of countless musicians, developing a generational talent with a crossover appeal to multiple genres to become one of the rising stars of the 2020s. The jamgrass rocker has become well known for his scintillating skill of shredding hot licks on acoustic guitar, his nightly instrument of choice on tour. But it was an intriguing change of pace to see Strings also rocking out on some electric guitar with Phish, as he’d also done when guest starring with Billy & the Kids in 2021 (an all-star group led by Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann.)
Billy Strings’ rising popularity has led to a full house at the Greek tonight. He receives a hero’s welcome when he hits the stage, with the venue being sacred ground in the psychedelic rock counterculture dating back to the scene’s origins in the 1960s. Strings is quickly joined by the rest of the band to get down to business with some hot bluesy picking on “Wild Bill Jones”, which he attributes to an old cowboy tune he heard his dad play a lot. The quintet gets it going further on “Secrets” from 2021’s Renewal album, with banjo player Billy Falling, fiddle player Alex Hargreaves, and mandolinist Jarrod Walker all taking turns leading the way while bassist Royal Masat holds down the low end with style.
The vibe moves to a higher level with “On the Line”, an upbeat song from 2017’s Turmoil & Tinfoil album that has become a fan favorite staple of the repertoire. When Billy Strings sings, “You can’t stop us from dancing, You can’t stop us from feeling high, We can’t help it if we’d like to stay out all night,” the lyrics clearly resonate as an anthem for music lovers who are always looking for a good dance party because “It’s a cure for the bleakness, It’s a pill for the day to day…” The dance party vibe can be felt at an existential level here at the Greek if one ventures into the walkway between the bowl and the lawn during the shows, where a horde of spinning fans fill the aisle in a fashion reminiscent of Grateful Dead and Phish shows.
The first set continues to surge on “Be Your Man”, as Billy Strings leads the band from the bluegrass format into a psyche-rock jam zone that demonstrates how this band has broken through from the jamgrass genre to become a larger phenomenon. Strings steps up to shred some superb rock ‘n’ roll style lead guitar as the quintet gels for a stellar jam that goes for an 18-minute ride to electrify the Greek. Another dazzling jam occurs a few songs later on “Doin‘ Things Right”, with Strings tearing it up in a scintillating fashion that even finds him tagging on a solo toward the end that sounds similar to Eddie Van Halen’s “Eruption”. The group’s psychedelic light show is also activated deeper here, with circular light fixtures above each band member that make it look like each musician has beamed down from a flying saucer.
“Long Forgotten Dream” from 2019’s Home album follows with a fiery performance that blends an old-world vibe with modern musicianship as Strings sings of listening “for the echo of your long forgotten dream” to bring the first set to a rousing conclusion. Fans remark on the pleasant weather during the set break, with no fog rolling in and no heavyweight hoodies needed.
An early highlight of the second set occurs when Billy Strings notes that the band recorded some of their impending new album Highway Prayers here in California, winning a cheer for “the best coast” as he introduces the new song “Seven Weeks in County”. It’s a bluesy barnburner with a cosmic cowboy vibe that opens up for an extended exploration, with Strings shredding melty hot riffage on a fierce jam that lights up the Greek. Strings has also recently released a trippy new video for the new album’s track “Stratosphere Blues/I Believe in You”.
The group delivers a different kind of highlight with a cover of the traditional “I’ve Been All Around This World”, which resonates with a hometown flavor here in the Bay Area since the tune was popularized by the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band. A huge jam on “Turmoil and Tinfoil” becomes the centerpiece of the second set with a sensational spacey jam that sees the bluesy song stretch past 20 minutes, much to the delight of this adoring audience that’s loving every minute of it (another 20-minute version from the group’s 2023 New Year’s Eve show can be found on 2024’s Live Vol. 1 release.)
Strings takes a moment toward the end of the set to speak to prior generations of the bluegrass genre’s old guard, expressing gratitude for influential players like Del McCoury and David Grisman still being around before going on to note the passing of fiddler Bobby Hicks, the previous day. This leads to a performance of Hicks’ old-timey instrumental “Maiden’s Prayer”.
Strings’ own classic “Dust in a Baggie” from his eponymous 2016 EP concludes the set with a flourish, as he sings out a modern-day jailhouse blues tune for a high-energy closer. An acapella encore of “Richard Petty” finds the quintet singing about making a change and “living a better life one of these days”, a sentiment that resonates with a universe vibe as the audience reaction clearly attests. It’s been a fabulous night outside under the stars here at the Greek Theater, and it seems like the sky is the limit for Billy Strings.
