REVIEW: A Joyful Night at The Egg with Yonder Mountain String Band
01/24/25 @ The Egg, Albany
**This article originally appeared in our February 2025 issue.**
All photos by Tom Miller
“Although many crowd members were blissfully losing themselves in the strings, others were out of their seats dancing, making use of any moment of relative quiet.”
“The last time we were here, a pie-eating contest opened for us,” began Ben Kauffman, bassist and vocalist of the Yonder Mountain String Band, referencing the convention center inside The Egg. “This time, there’s a gun show…Albany is weird, y’all,” he concluded, eliciting a wave of chuckles from the crowd. And while the audience may not have gotten any less weird (don’t worry, we’ll get there), the five-piece embraced the hoots, hollers, and shouts of encouragement to create an energetic, one-of-a-kind night.
Beginning with a cover of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “I Need To Know,” Nick Piccininni (mandolin) and Coleman Smith (fiddle) came out so hard that I worried there would be nowhere for the band to go for the following two hours. Piccininni’s agile playing combined with Smith’s melodic liveliness was a sight and sound to behold, building in pace and intensity for several minutes until the succinct, clean finish.
In their 27th year, the group has a wealth of tracks to choose from and took advantage of the deep catalog. Guitarist Adam Aijala took the lead on a 2008 tune, “Near Me,” where his twang added an edge to harmonies with Piccininni, whose voice is straight out of pop country. Kauffman added his own country rasp to the 2009 track, “Complicated,” a faster tune in which he traded his upright bass for a Lakland bass to create a bit more of a rock sound. At one point, they even graced us with a mashup of their 1999 “If There’s Still Ramblin’ In The Rambler” and the folk tune “Polly Put The Kettle On,” all grounded in Dave Johnston’s nimble banjo playing.
As someone who doesn’t tend to frequent jam bands, I was impressed by the simultaneous cohesion and playfulness that came out of their “jamgrass” style. Space would open up and the taut lines of structure would dissolve into an ever-changing blend of strings. They gave each other the space to experiment, sometimes physically stepping out of their line to put the emphasis on a particular member; they created through-lines with call-and-response style melodies among all five instruments. The audience sat within their world and absorbed the tunes for as long as they could, eventually coaxed out by a return of lyrics and a staccato, sharp ending to reveal that, while you had been sliding along the melody, they had been meticulously keeping time.
Although many crowd members were blissfully losing themselves in the strings, others were out of their seats dancing, making use of any moment of relative quiet. They whooped and shouted to their heart’s content, creating a chorus of encouragement: “I love you guys!” to “Make that noise!” to “Thanks for making me smile!” It’s safe to say I’ve never been in such a rowdy crowd at The Egg.
However, the energy paid off as we were treated to an unplugged acoustic set as an encore. For the first time all night, a complete hush fell across the room as the five men took the front of the stage and sang, letting the room’s acoustics reverberate with their harmonies. From “Dancing in the Moonlight” to “Goodbye Blue Sky,” they put the Yonder Mountain String Band spin on songs that delighted the audience. “This is the whole point of the gig,” Kaufmann remarked. “To experience joy.” And a joyful night it was.
