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New Monsoon at the The Great American Music Hall

Photo by John Margaretten

New Monsoon
Great American Music Hall
San Francisco, CA
September 24

On Friday September 24, San Franciscans awoke to find that our Indian summer had finally arrived. Riding in on the hot winds were local favorites New Monsoon and Tracorum for a one-night-only gig at the gilded Great American. Both acts are featured in the lineup of the Las Tortugas festival in Yosemite over Halloween weekend.

New Monsoon features founding members Bo Carper on acoustic guitar, banjo and vocals, Jeff Miller on lead guitar and vocals and Phil Ferlino on keyboards and vocals, along with Marshall Harrell on six-string bass and Sean Hutchinson on drums. After a high-energy and wide-ranging set from Tracorum, New Monsoon took the stage and launched into a two-hour jam featuring many familiar favorites, a mid-set Little Feat three-pack, as well as Rajiv Parikh, a former member, sitting-in on tabla.

New Monsoon is wonderfully adept with all the familiar jamband idioms, especially 70’s guitar rock a la the Allman Brothers, but where they really distinguish themselves is in marrying those familiar grooves with exotic sounds hinting of the Indian subcontinent and beyond. This was never more evident than when the band invited former-member Parikh to the stage for an extended tabla solo that transitioned into the rocking instrumental, “Travelling Gypsies.” With Parikh up on stage playing intricate figures on tabla and Carper playing raga-like runs on the five-string, echoed by Miller on guitar, the effect was that of a remarkable union of East meets West Virginia. All the while, Ferlino and the extremely tight and heavy rhythm section combined forces to keep the whole extraordinary enterprise barreling along. The set also showcased the band’s great songwriting/storytelling talents on songs like “Alaska” and “Other Side,” as well as Miller’s rock-star chops as he alternated between an SG and a blue and white Strat, which he played to great effect on the Little Feat covers, “Spanish Moon>>Skin it Back>>The Fan.” Ferlino also showed off his deft touch on “Song For Marie,” and others, playing rollicking runs reminiscent of Chuck Leavell. After encoring with Ophelia by The Band, New Monsoon left the stage with the happily saturated crowd looking forward to the woods of Yosemite and Las Tortugas.