Beloved jam rockers Umphrey’s McGee will bring their dynamic live show to the University of Miami on Saturday, March 7. The band will appear without an opening act, as they will instead play two full sets for an approximately three-hour-long show. Hurricane Productions is sponsoring the free live event that will take place on the UC Patio starting at 8 p.m.
With the sudden cancellation of the Langerado Music Festival, many bands are frantically trying to book other shows for that weekend.
“We stole them away from the Culture Room and Revolution and such,” said Andrew Hunter, the large venue concert chair of the HP Concert Committee.
This will be the band’s only South Florida tour date for a group that plays more than 100 shows each year.
“These guys are known for playing for hours,” said Hunter, a senior majoring in English. “We’re just gonna let them do their thing.”
Band members themselves are excited to come to South Florida, having played Langerado multiple times in the festival’s six-year history.
“[Langerado] always had great lineups, so it’s obviously a huge disappointment what happened this year,” said Umphrey’s keyboardist Joel Cummins in an interview with The Miami Hurricane.
They’re excited this opportunity to play at UM arose, though.
“We’re totally psyched to be playing a gig that night – outside for a bunch of people for free,” Cummins said.
He describes Umphrey’s McGee’s sound as “the music that you’d want for the soundtrack of your life if you had to carry around a boom box. It’s pretty much whatever you want it to be, you just let us know and we’ll try to make that happen.”
The band will be playing songs from their new album Mantis, which dropped on Inauguration Day. The new album has received critical acclaim from the New York Times and Rolling Stone and has been noted as having a more condensed feel than their previous output.
The performance by Umphrey’s McGee will just add to a weekend of alternative Langerado festivities sponsored by HP. Patio Jams will take place as scheduled on Thursday, March 5. Later that day, local band Awesome New Republic and Chicago-based Future Rock will play Happy Hour at the Rat starting at 4:30 p.m.
The Hurricane Productions Concert Committee has brought N*E*R*D, Kidz in the Hall, TR3 feat Tim Reynolds, Pharoahe Monch, and the Heavy Pets to campus this school year.
Exclaimed Cummins, “University of Miami in March? Sign me up! Great!”
If You Go
Who: Umphrey’s McGee
When: Saturday, March 7, 2009. Show starts at 8 p.m.
Where: UC Patio
Cost: Free