STEPH DEROSA: LOOSE DIGITS LET IT LOOSE >>>

Night two of Wintergrass provided Tacoma and all Hotel Murano inhabitants more banjo than you could shake a fiddlestick at.  I skipped around from the Hotel Murano’s Pavilion Stage, to the Santa Cruz Lounge downstairs, and over to the Marriott stage (appropriately located in the Courtyard by Marriott).  There were two more stages, one being at Urban Grace church and the other being a dance stage in the Varsity Grill.

To be honest, this girl was geared up and ready to go.  It was a beautiful night, and I had no problem walking.  What I soon figured out was a lot of the bands were repeated at the different venues, so you could almost stay in one place and eventually enjoy them all.  I also figured out that the more I stage hopped, the less involved I felt in each band’s performance.  They were all roughly 40 sets, so that didn’t leave much time to come and go during each performance.

Like I said, there were a lot of banjos tearin’ up the place.  I was happy to see Aoife O’Donovan in Crooked Still, as I had fallen in love with her voice the night before when she jumped on the stage with Sarah Jarosz. 

The Infamous Stringdusters were by far the prettiest group of musicians I had ever seen.  They were very fun to look at, yes, very good-looking.

Trampled by Turtles made an appearance coming all the way from Minnesota.  Full beards are a mandatory element to this group of banjo pluckers.  The bass player is an obvious rebel to the rules.

The band I will name as the official “Steph DeRosa Wintergrass Band of the Night” (SDWBOTN) is Loose Digits.  Thank you guys for not killing us with a banjo.  Thank you also for having facial expression, making eye contact with each other, playing off each other, showing passion, rawness, emotion, and exposing your warm hearts.  With very few lyrical pieces, they expressed thoughts purely through the music. By watching them play, and hearing the flow, you could read what they were saying without having them speak at all.  To Loose Digits I say, “Bravo!”  Thank you for living up to the awesomeness that Wintergrass is all about.

LINK: Weekly Volcano's Wintergrass Central.

Here are a few random Wintergrass shots: