Falling further behind

Friday night is wrapping up with the Drive-By Truckers doing their three-guitar Southern rock thing. Not bluegrass by any stretch but not bad actually. Hey, I used to listen to the Marshall Tucker Band.

Bela and the Flecktones were great in their return after a year's hiatus. They put out some amazing sounds with just four musicians--sometimes it's hard to tell who's playing what. Bela acknowledged the honor given him the night before for playing his 25th Telluride. "It's hard to believe it has been 25 years since I first came here with New Grass Revival, and what a chance that was at the time. Now we've been here with so many lineups, it really feels like home."

This year, unlike most, Fleck will not be on hand for the second half of the festival. With Bonnaroo also underway in Tennessee this weekend, the Flecktones are flying out first thing in the morning.

On the subject of reunions of veteran Telluride players, Jerry Douglas mentioned during his set earlier that four-fifths of Strength in Numbers played in the house band set the previous night--only Mark O'Connor was missing. Evidently, it was not for lack of trying on the part of Craig Ferguson of Planet Bluegrass, who had hoped to score a coup with a reunion concert.

Douglas was still glowing from his guest shot during the Bonnie Raitt set. "I hope my wife won't ming if I tell your that Bonnie must have kissed me five times last night."

It may not be possible to get caught up on set by set blogging. One post that I never got to today was my impressions of the Band Contest preliminaries. I'll just say that all of my picks for the top 3 bands of the prelims made the cut--Green Grass Bluegrass, The Boulder Acoustic Society, and Poor Man's Whiskey. A fourth band, Widowmaker, will join them in the finals first thing tomorrow.

Hopefully, I get you a timely report. Good night for now. I think I'll catch the Truckers' encore and off into the chilly night.