Dark Side Of The Mountain At the Rusty Nail Stowe VT February 27, 2016

Words by Tim Lewis.

I had a great time seeing music Saturday night at the Rusty Nail. It had been a while since I’ve seen Dark Side of the Mountain play some serious Pink Floyd tunes and the idea of catching a bus from Nectar’s to go see the show in Stowe was too good to pass up. The bus was set to leave at 8 and I arrived around 7:40 and saw the yellow school bus parked in front of Nectar’s. After a few minutes lots of people started to show up and we boarded the bus and off we went. The trip was quick and fairly mellow. I thought it might be more of a party bus, but people were just chatting quietly. When we arrived I met up with Rich Haskell and Mary Wolcottand we got drinks and found a place on the floor in front of the stage.

The lights went down and the intense video production started and a heavy version of Obscured By Clouds, which fell into When You’re In, opened the show. The band were magnificent and the music vibrated every fiber of your body. They followed with Welcome To The Machine and had the whole audience in their grasp. Interstellar Overdrive was next, but around half way in, before the pinging starts, they went into something that I did not catch. It played for a short time before the opening effects from Dark Side Of The Moon kicked in. They played Speak To Me and Breathe, and took a wild ride through On The Run. The clocks went off and Time was just wonderful as they played it through and brought it back to the reprise of Breathe. I thought they would keep going, but they took an odd turn and dropped it into Young Lust. Kat Wright came out to sing it then stayed on for Have A Cigar. Kat left and the band continued on with Hey You. Shine On You Crazy Diamond followed. I wasn’t sure which parts they would play, but by the end, I’m pretty sure they played the whole thing. In the middle, Jake Whitesell laid down some intense sax playing. Wish You Were Here followed and they dropped it into Fearless and played a great version of the song. They said something about maybe taking a break, or maybe just keep on playing. They decided on the latter and the opening strains of Pigs On The Wing Part 1 began. Dogs followed then they played Pigs. They followed that with Sheep before putting Animals to bed with Pigs On The Wing Part.2. They lightened things up a little with Matthew Bryan Hagen singing a breezy San Tropez, then lit back into the intense set with Lucifer Sam. They returned to the dark side with Any Colour You Like then closed the set with Kat singing Brain Damage and Eclipse. They left the stage briefly then came back and the opening blips from Echoes began. They played it into the middle section then took a turn into Comfortably Numb. They played Numb all the way through then brought it back into the middle of Echoes then played out the full ending.

Happily exhausted, I said good night to Rich and Mary then hopped back on the bus. It was a little more chatty than the ride down, but was still fairly quite after such a stunning show. The ride home was quick and easy and the walk back to the North End from Nectar’s was uneventful. The whole show was so much fun and so easy and so great, I’m really glad I put in the effort.

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