String Cheese Incident + Umphrey’s McGee Relay Marathon is the headline for Saturday and maybe the entire festival. SCI is up for their traditional three-set Saturday with the third set being the ‘theme’ set which is always spectacular. I’ve been coming to Hula since 2017 and they’ve put on some amazing shows incluidng 70s, 80s, and 90s events and they always have monster sit-ins with special guests that are not elsewhere on the program.
Sandwiched between the Cheese sets are two Umphrey’s McGee sets. UM is a jamband powerhouse, and a headliner and many festivals and major venues like Red Rocks many times over.
I’ll try to catch some Tash Sultana who closes out The Hallows and possibly Sublime who closes out The Meadow. the I expect to spend a most of the day bouncing around between The Meadow and Hallows stages on Saturday after seeing some of my must sees earlier.
Sauce Pocket came onto my radar earlier this year at Whippersnap and Resonate an dnow they’re on my must see list. Their funk-fusion jams hit just right and I’m really stoked to capture them again. I haven’t seen them with Jessica Jones on vocals so I’m sure this set will be extra special.
Andy Frasco & The U.N. is one of the best party jam bands around with unmatched energy of the entire band. Andy is a maniac and a consumate entertainer with his playing, singing and all-around shenanigans. Ernie Chang is amazing on sax and the entire band knows how to jam and put on a show. This is suprisingly one of the toughest conflicts of the whole festival for me, with them being opposite the Sauce Pocket crew.
Guavatron is an improvisational, jamtronica quartet out of West Palm Beach, FL. They’ve been touring a bunch lately and making a name for themselves. They put on a stellar set earlier this year at Whippersnap so I’ll be out earlier to catch them again.
The Bobby Weir Incident is the main event for Sunday and possible the entire fest as the Dead’s Bob Weir teams up with Cheese for two sets on The Meadow stage. This is the type of pairing that people dream of, that make Hula and other similar events so special. The chance to see something like this is so rare that people will be thankful just to be there.
It also feels like the Hula organizers have made a conscious decision to set up unofficial music themes for each day without totally compartmentalizing specific bands. Sunday is a bluegrass rich day with the Sam Grisman Project and Greensky Bluegrass on The Hallows stage before the BWI sets. Leading off the day are Holly Bowling and the rising stars The Aint Sisters in the Meadow-Hallows bowl. This will be a nice chill Sunday afternoon for me leading up to the closing ceremonies with The New Mastersounds.
The New Mastersounds are one of my fave bands of all time and I see them every chance I get. They were restricted in travel during the pandemic and only did very limited touring up until earlier this year. The band, formed in Leeds, England have been cranking out the best retro funk music around for 25 years! Here’s a video the at Whippersnap back in February, which was their first return to the U.S. since early 2020! It’s absolutely the BEST way to close out the fest for me!