Dark Side Of The Mountain At Nectar’s December 4, 2013

Words by Tim Lewis.

I had a great time last Wednesday seeing the Pink Floyd cover band Dark Side Of The Mountain at Nectar’s. Bob Wagner played guitar and Matt Burr was on drums. They were joined by Josh Weinstein on bass and Dan Munzing on keys. I had forgotten about the show, but Wednesday is my Saturday, so after an afternoon nap, Rich Haskell stopped by and said let’s go. We did. When we arrived, there were white tarps along the back and side wall. White tarps hung from the keyboards and he monitors. A modified Dark Side cover was projected on the back walls with what looked like a sine wave, that crested into a mountain peak, taking the place of the line going into and out of the pyramid. The rainbow was, of course, there too. One look at that, and I knew it was going to be fun. We hung out for a bit and I was chatting with Jeff LaBossiere and Chris Farnsworth when the band started to play. I think they opened with Obscured By Clouds and ran it into When You’re In. They sounded great from the first note, and some cool, liquid projections floated on and around the stage. They followed with a fun Have A Cigar and then played side one of Dark Side. There was a tiny bit more of a blues edge to the songs, and a hair less of the psychedelic side, but for the most part, they sounded wonderful. The intro was pretty short, On the Run was a bit of a jam, and the extra microphone on the stage was not used by any of Vermont’s amazing women who could sing the Great Gig parts, but rather Bob played them on guitar. They wrapped it nicely going from Time back into Breathe. I thought for sure they would play the whole album, so I was surprised when they were joined by anther guitar player, who’s name I missed, but was as good as Bob, for Comfortably Numb. It was pretty over the top and ended the first set. The set break was not too long and they returned with the second guitarist, D. Davis (for most if not all of the second set) and a rocking Young Lust. They followed with a fun journey through Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun. It was epic and wonderful. Up next, they went back to the Wall for In The Flesh, Another Brick pt 1->Another Brick pt 2, then Hey You. While it did not sound exactly like Floyd, it was stunningly close and sounded like a rock band really going for it. Wish You Were Here was pretty sweet, Interstellar Overdive rocked hard, then they closed with Brain Damage/Eclipse. They came out for a nice encore of Shine On You Crazy Diamond and ended the night with Run Like Hell. The paying was great, the lights were hypnotizing and the packed audience had a great time. They are doing this for the next two Wednesdays, for no cover charge, then will be joined by Marco Benevento at Club Metronome on December 29th. Unlike the free Nectar’s shows, that one will cost a bit of money. I’m sure it will be worth every penny.

This post was originally published by Tim Lewis at his personal blog, https://timstriangletribune.wordpress.com.