My Top 20 UM Shows Attended

I was at a moe. show where it was some girl’s 300th show. Al passed his guitar to her in the crowd and let her wail on it during a jam for almost a minute before taking it back.

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I would absolutely love to be able to help write a setlist. I’d mix it up with old/new songs, songs with and without lyrics, Bayliss and Jake songs. Think the band would enjoy playing what I could come up with…

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4/3 is the best of ‘08! Wonder where that would fall on Dan’s list

I think most of us here could write a setlist Borters would enjoy. You probably have the insight to write something Borters and the band would enjoy.

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Good times. 15 years ago!! Hope to be able to catch up soon.

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I did the night before in N Myrtle Beach…drove the 11 hours down from LI for that show only bc U-Melt was opening and I really wanted to see my friends open for UM.

I couldn’t do AVL because I had just gotten back from London > Amsterdam > Paris 2 week trip a couple weeks prior and couldn’t take that much more time off in the spring. Patio furniture ain’t gonna sell itself!!!

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Same here. I caught the two in MN and had a blast. My best friend was in school at UW Madison at the time and saw the Thursday show then borrowed a car and skipped Friday classes to come home for the First Ave shows.

I thought we went to a Myrtle Beach show together. Couldn’t figure out which one. But now I remember. Wow the band was on fire in ‘08.
I really dug u-melt. Loved seeing them late night Jazzfest after Umphrey’s in ‘06 I believe. Spun at 7am after their show walking to the hotel in NOLA is some good memories.

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‘03 through ‘08 was the Golden Era of UM. They just kept getting better and better with each and every show, truly a remarkable time to be on ter!

U-Melt!

Used to love listening to those guys, haven’t heard that name in many years.

I remember 8/12/10 was Alki’s 600th show. Don’t know if he had any requests but that show had some rarities.

Wow, I remember Alki from living in Bloomington from 2002-2006

One of my biggest regrets is being too Phish obsessed in those years to fully appreciate UM. I would catch them 2 or 3 times a year but never really got hooked until 07. I missed some prime midwest UM tours back then.

Fast forward to 2020 and I am all but off the Phish train and have such huge love for UM

That was my first show

These are not in order of favorite, this is just what jumps out at me after a quick glance at my ATU account. This is out of 200 shows and was way harder than I imagined. This list is MidwestAF.

05/27/05 - Three Sisters Park - Chillicothe, IL (late night)
02/24/06 - The Pageant - St. Louis, MO
04/27/06 - The Canopy Club - Urbana, IL
06/10/06 - The Lawn at White River - Indianapolis, IN
08/25/06 - F.U.N.K. Fest - Bean Blossom, IN
11/18/06 - The Pageant - St. Louis, MO
07/19/07 - 10,000 Lakes Festival - Detroit Lakes, MN
09/14/07 - The Canopy Club - Urbana, IL
11/09/07 - IU Auditorium - Bloomington, IN
12/30/07 - Aragon Ballroom - Chicago, IL
04/05/08 - The Pageant - St. Louis, MO
05/23/08 - Three Sisters Park - Chillicothe, IL
12/31/08 - Auditorium Theater - Chicago, IL
02/14/09 - The Barrymore Theater - Madison, WI
04/24/10 - Lincoln Hall - Chicago, IL
05/27/11 - Three Sisters Park - Chillicothe, IL
10/20/11 - The Bluebird - Bloomington, IN
12/29/11 - The Pageant - St. Louis, MO
04/28/12 - Martrys - Chicago, IL
09/14/12 - Red Rock Ampitheater - Morrison, CO
10/18/18 - The Canopy Club - Urbana, IL

Honorable mention:
10/04/08 - Peoria Ribfest and Chili Cook Off - Peoria, IL
07/16/09 - The Capitol Theater - Davenport, IA
09/30/05 - The Pageant - St. Louis, MO
05/28/10 - Three Sisters Park - Chillicothe, IL
04/02/11 - Park West - Chicago, IL
04/28/06 - The Canopy Club - Urbana, IL
08/27-28/09 - The Canopy Club - Urbana, IL

My top 20 shows? I can’t remember.

3/8/05 is one of my favorite shows I’ve attended as well. I’ve never seen the band drunker on stage, they were so loose and having a blast. I’ve probably listened to that Front Porch 50 times (my one and only FP in 18 years of seeing this band).

Damn, that’s crazy you’ve only caught one in that long of a period. That was the drunkest the band has been on stage at a show I attended for sure. They were rowdy as fuck hahahaha.

Thanks for putting this together. It really is awesome to get a rearview look at someone’s time seeing the band, especially one with an opinion I respect so much. To me it almost sounds like an idea for an ambitious writing project to reflect on what I consider my Top 20 shows attended so far in 14 years seeing the band.

Did you put this together with experience factored in or did you try to focus on what you truly believed to be the best the band played in front of you with your list? I’m going to take some time to think about my favorite shows I’ve seen live and I will try to post a rough draft list here in the future myself. I think this is a great idea for a thread and I’d love to see some more perspectives.

@cryan024 thank you too for taking the time to post yours. If you had any extra time to kill and wanted to, throwing up the venues/cities/etc. or ranking them would be cool to see. I’m excited to hear @Southern_Dan’s methodology if you will, lol.

This could be the start of an all timer show list from the Bort and we could demand the deluxe vinyl pressings from the band of our opinion’s over time as part of Umphrey’s as a Service. Just an idea haha.

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Thanks Mike.

My plan is to start writing about my history of seeing UM. Since there are so many shows and I’ve met and hung with so many people the last 16 years some things are a little fuzzy but I’m gonna give it a go this winter. I am contemplating putting it on a blog site so I could include photos and links to shows on the internet.

When ranking my shows there are a variety of factors. The most important ones are improv, song selection and flow. I definitely remember walking away from all these shows I selected knowing I witnessed greatness.

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Yeah I love reading through these lists, thanks for putting them together @Southern_Dan @cryan024

I’d love to see more of these, preferably with people who have seen at least 100 shows. I might put one together myself, although I’m only at 97 :sweat:

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