From the Series: Gateway Friends
Story written by: Greenberry Taylor
I’m fed up. I really am.
This Responsible Wook thing is cool and all, but now I’ve got people asking questions. A lot of questions.
“You love Billy Strings that much?” “I thought you rocked with hip-hop?” “Why are you a Dave Matthews Band fan?” “Why is there Primus on this playlist with Amos Lee?”
Oh, and thanks to Michael yapping about “the real” Panic, I’ve gotten, “Did you even see Panic?”
Well, folks, I hate to pass the buck, but that’s exactly what I’m doing. There are people to blame for cracking open those doors. So, unlike a hip-hop beef, I’m putting everyone on blast.
First up: Clancy and Anderson Co. (feat. Kevin)
I remember it like it was yesterday.
Bridget Clancy (Bridg) called Amanda and invited her to attend a concert with her and her ragtag crew on a random night in March 2021.
We met at Mojo's Tacos right down the street from the Saint Augustine Amphitheatre (The Amp). There were five people sitting at a table when Amanda and I showed up.
I barely knew any of them. The only thing they really knew about me was that I was Amanda's boyfriend who liked Panic.
At that point, liking Panic felt more like a fact about my past than a description of my present. I still loved live music, but somewhere between grad school, work, and the world shutting down, I had fallen out of the rhythm of going to shows.
The ragtag crew was already chowing down, no doubt getting their fuel for the show. I ordered a beef burrito, WET style, y'all. Amanda ordered chips and guac. We grabbed our food and an extra seat and squeezed into the table.
Right out of the gate, Amanda broke the tragic news.
“Bridg, I just don’t think I can go tonight,” Amanda said as she snacked on her chips. “I have so much work I need to do on my dissertation. I’d just be too stressed.”
Bridg, wearing a grey-purple swirled tie dye sweatshirt, looked disappointed. I don’t blame her. They came here with an extra ticket and Amanda was bailing at the 11th hour.
I didn't know what to think except, "Wow. Thanks for being smart AND responsible, Amanda. Maybe one day I'll get there. Also, you’re perfect."
Members of the crew slowly turned their gaze toward me, Amanda’s boyfriend, formerly known as Greenberry. It felt like I had just been volunteered as tribute for the concert.
“You like Panic,” a guy asked while shoving a burrito into his mouth. He swallowed and then followed up with, “Did you get your burrito WET, too?”
He had longish hair, and was wearing a red dirt, earth tone sweatshirt. I remembered him from a girl’s trip Amanda had where significant others were granted exclusive access.
Enter: Evan Clancy
“Yeah. Panic is rad,” I replied while Evan continued to murder his meal. “Billy plays some Panic,” Bridg stated with much enthusiasm. “You should come with us!”
“Hmm. I haven’t heard any Panic in a while,” I thought.
It was 2021, so still in the thick of Covid days. The only “live” music I had heard recently came from the comfort of my living room where we watched a handful of those streaming concerts bands were hosting. I do remember Primus. What a killer show.
A man toward the end of the table spoke up. He was wearing a grey Florida Gator’s hoodie and had grey hair pulled back into a ponytail. He was older. He looked cool. The kind of cool where you’re like, “I wanna be like that when I grow up.”
Enter: Andy Anderson
“Not your average Bluegrass band,” Andy said, while eating what I recall to also be a burrito. He didn’t look at me, just his burrito. I could see him smirking, though.
Andy’s mysterious words coupled with Bridget’s Panic endorsement and Evan’s burrito eating skills had my musical mind piqued.
I didn’t know much about Bluegrass. I fucked with Yonder Mountain, Keller, Béla Fleck, and some other cats. But what the hell did Andy mean when he prefaced the genre with “not your average?”
“I’m in,” I said.
A small woman sitting next to Andy spoke after I had accepted Bridg’s generous offer. She had a really cool mask hanging below her neck with a dope flower print on it.
Enter: ReRe Anderson
“Oh my god! You’re going to love him,” ReRe said, with more excitement than Bridg’s Panic endorsement. “He’s fantastic. Just wait.”
The deal was done! I was headed to see this Billy Strings character at a “pod concert” at the Amp. The weather was nasty. It was cold, windy, and raining. Oh the dreadful wind and rain!
I don’t remember much about the show other than being disoriented. It was hard to comprehend what I was hearing. It was Bluegrass, but it was unlike anything I had ever heard. I was able to find my bearings when they launched into “All Time Low.”
I lost my GOT DAMN mind.
Who knows who is both your best friend and brother / When everyone's deserted you / Who'd shoot first and ask questions later / If anybody's messed with you.
I felt an old part of my brain crackling.
Pretty soon we'll all be tumblin' like a barrel, thrown from the top of the waterfall / Well I'm drowning in piranhas in the river / Man, what a drag, man!
The lyrics and Billy’s vocals stoked something that had been dormant in me for a long time. The crackling in my brain was now a full-blown explosion.
“Where is he playing next on the tour? What else is he going to cover? Who is the cat? I fucking love WSMFP! I need a garlic grilled cheese!”
At set break, the one member of the crew that I hadn’t talked with yet spoke. She was wearing a grey-white tie dye sweatshirt and some wild pinkish pants. At this point though, everyone was wearing beanies, gloves (if applicable), and hoodies.
Enter: Ariel Anderson
“How about that All Time Low,” she hollered. “Incredible," I responded.
I told the crew I was going to check out the merch. The perfect, and least crowded time to go: set break.
Before I got up, Ariel dropped some knowledge on me.
“With Covid and all, you can scan the QR code at the booth, buy the merchandise online, and they will text you when your order is ready,” she explained. Say what you will about the Covid days, but not waiting in a merch line was clutch.
With Ariel's wisdom, I pulled up the merch page on my phone. Shirts. Hoodies. Hats. Then I saw the poster.
I didn't hesitate.
To most people, it's just a concert poster. But to me, they're time machines.
When I look at it now, I don't just see the artwork or remember the show. I see something else. I see the night five people I barely knew unknowingly woke up a part of me I didn't even know had fallen asleep.
Billy launched into a monster jam to start the second set. Again, familiar sounds of Bluegrass, but infused with metal, psychedelic, rock, and something else. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
Andy leaned over and spoke the words he had said earlier that night into my ear. The music was loud, but I could still make out what he was saying.
“Not your average Bluegrass band.”
I understood what he meant now. It clicked.
The crew was dancing. Vibing. Letting the music course through them. When the jam had finished, I asked Bridg, “What song was that?”
She turned to Ev. “What song was that?” Ev thought for a moment, then he snapped his fingers when the answer came to him. “Turmoil and Tinfoil,” he responded. “You like,” he asked while laughing.
Oh yeah. I liked.
When the show was over and we began to part ways, I asked about “Turmoil and Tinfoil” again, as I had already forgotten the name. “The show should be up on Nugs in the next few days,” Ev said.
The last time I had used Nugs.net, it was a website where tapers uploaded recordings of live shows and they were available for free download. Now, it was a legit streaming service for bands to post high-quality recordings of their live shows.
I had missed so much since I was gone!
I downloaded the app immediately when I got in the car, and went down the Billy rabbit hole when I laid my head to sleep that night.
Clancy and Anderson Co. had hooked me on BMFS.
Before them, Fall was for watching leaves change. Winter was waiting for the temp to drop below 78 degrees and praying I could wear one of the 58 hoodies I own. Spring was about talking about taking a vacation I could never afford. And summer, well, I don’t know. The beach I guess.
Now, seasons trigger a Pavlovian response to obsessively check the release of tour dates, strategizing how to score tickets to said tours, and setting up therapy sessions for my bank account.
They are to blame.
I blame them for all of the joy I get from seeing this band. For all of the memories it has allowed me to create.
Like watching my wife smile and dance barefoot in the grass at Golden Gate Park while Billy serenaded the crowd before Dead & Company took the stage. Tears welled up in here eyes during "Box of Rain" with Graham Lesh, and when Billy joined them for "Wharf Rat," she looked at me and said, "Jerry, man. Jerry."
Or standing in the merch line at Royal Albert Hall with my mom, both of us racing for a poster and each of us securing one with foil! Celebrating her first time in London and this historic show in the tiny Italian restaurant attached to the venue before the show. Then watching her clap, smile, and throw her head back with joy as Billy and the boys closed the night with "Richard Petty."
Now, six years later, every Saint Augustine run feels like a reunion with Andy, ReRe, Bridg, Ariel, Evan, and the newest, and arguably cutest, member of the crew, Caroline.
I look forward to it every year.
I blame them for Kevin. The gigantic human I see at shows where Clancy & Anderson Co. are nowhere to be found. Kevin, a dude that manages to be a blend of cool and goofy all at once, and brightens up any Lot he is found in. He’s the best. Just saw him at Phish in Savannah.
How dare this music create the opportunity for us to grow close, so close that Ev officiated Amanda and I’s wedding. So close that I can sit next to them at a Billy show and cry when “Show Me the Door” plays because I miss my dad. So close that when I saw Bridg and Ariel’s picture with Andy from this past Father’s Day at the Telluride festival, tears swelled up in my eyes because I know how sacred that relationship is.
A Billy Strings ticket wasn't the gift that night in March 2021. The people were.
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About the Author:
Greenberry Taylor
Bio: I'm a Bama kid. My first concert was Shania Twain, but the first one I was truly stoked about was Dave Matthews Band at HiFi Buys Amphitheatre in Atlanta in 2002. From there, things got wonderfully out of hand. Panic, Ben Harper, Rage Against the Machine. The road goes on forever, man.
Since then, I've chased stories from newspaper offices in Mobile to ski slopes in Vail, Colorado, and spent time working shows like Bonnaroo, ACL, Electric Forest, and Coachella. When I was slinging Q in Daphne, I fell hard for the hypnotic grooves of R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Hill Country blues.
I snagged a PhD and molded a few minds along the way, but always told people I learned the most from the Lots, and long conversations with strangers who didn't stay strangers for long.
These days, you'll probably find me in the Lot at BMFS, or spinnin' RTJ.
Reach out: greenberry@responsiblewook.com
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