ALTITUDE WELLNESS: LEFTOVER SALMON at the High Sierra Music Festival July 4th Weekend - Bear Valley, Ca. Timothy Lynch, da Flower Punk May 10, 1997 - Berkeley, Ca.Many people, especially those that live outside of major urban centers, will use the number of miles they'll travel to see a band perform as a yardstick of how much they like or love a particular band and its concerts. I live in Berkeley, California, however. That's about 15 miles from the Fillmore Auditorium, the Great American Music Hall, Slim's, the Warfield Theater, the Maritime Hall, the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, New George's (San Rafael), or the Oakland Coliseum. It's about 25 miles from Sweetwater, in Mill Valley or the suburban Concord Pavilion. I can walk to the Greek Theater. Since just about any band I'm interested in seeing will play one of more of these halls when they come through the Bay Area, I need a different reference point. The yardstick for me is not how far I'll travel physically, but how far I'll travel *metaphysically*. Does a band know where that ineffable, musical "there" is? Can it probably or usually take me there? Do I count on the band to do my rituals, which means *ecstatic dance* and intense, active *listening*? Will the experience help to open and cleanse every chakra and pore in my body? Will I cancel appointments and reschedule responsibilities so that I can take in every gig the band has to offer in my area? Do I buy tickets to all the nights of a run as soon as they're available so I won't risk being shut out of a single minute of music? Will I tape every night, too, and spend the between gig hours listening to those tapes and dubbing them for others? Of all the bands on the road in America, there is only one that consistently meets all those criteria for me: LEFTOVER SALMON. LEFTOVER SALMON plays a blend of music it has aptly been dubbed "Poly-Ethnic Cajun Slamgrass." They start from a bluegrass base, using guitars, mandolins, banjos, fiddles and basses the way the gods intended those instruments to be played: with talent and with gusto. Then, they rock it out, speed it up, add drums, and jamming improvisational journeys. That's the "Slamgrass" part. It is three parts New Grass Revival and one part Grateful Dead. It is delicious. As soon as they see a potential border, they cross it. That's the "Poly- Ethnic" part. Caribbean flavors abound, such as the old Jamaican standards like "Boo-Boo" or "Zombie Jamboree." Reggae meets Memphis Minnie *and* Led Zeppelin in "When The Levee Breaks." Zydeco and cajun are also found in abundance in the music of LEFTOVER SALMON. The bottom line: LEFTOVER SALMON is quite possibly the best band on the road in America in 1997. It is most certainly my favorite. They take the best aspects of the Grateful Dead (rooted in all the American musical traditions, and then some; jam hard every night with different songs in different orders; with audiences burning pounds of herbs that smell like heaven) and the best parts of the bluegrass festival scene (every member of the band is an *extremely* talented picker; they seem to know every version of every standard ever written; the voices are every bit as important as the playing; they are very, very funny; and, "take the hands off the clocks, we're gonna be here a while"). Take LEFTOVER SALMON and add it to the High Sierra Music Festival and you get two of the West's finest musical offerings at once. The High Sierra Music Festival also takes the best aspects of the Grateful Dead concert scene and combines them with the best of the bluegrass festival scene while avoiding all the musical narrow-mindedness that can prevail amongst partisans of either. The is an intense feeling of *altitude wellness* I get at the High Sierra Music Festival (which is held some 7,000 up in the sky along Highway 4, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains). It is similar to the feeling I get when I see Leftover Salmon anywhere. Add the two together, and the sensation of *altitude wellness* is not merely doubled, it is raised exponentially. Please note an important fact about what I mean by altitude wellnes is not a simple, albeit encoded, drug reference. While partying and getting loose is encouraged at the High Sierra Music Festival or at Leftover Salmon shows, the kind of reckless, anonymous & irresponsible parking lot scenes around a Dead show are not. LEFTOVER SALMON is a class act, so is the High Sierra Music Festival. When these two class acts are intersecting, I'm pretty sure that heaven is right here on earth.