Back in the early ’90s, the H.O.R.D.E. Festival sprung up as the jam-band answer to Lollapalooza.
Surprisingly enough, most of the bands involved are still around in one form or another. Some became huge (Dave Matthews Band, Phish), some had big popularity swings both ways (Blues Traveler, Spin Doctors), and a few just kept trucking somewhere in the middle.
That’s where you can find Widespread Panic, which plays its first Pittsburgh show in eight years and its first Stage AE show Sunday night.
Widespread Panic, which formed in 1986 in Athens, Ga., and made its major-label debut in 1991, brought a bluesy Southern-rock accent to the scene, but percussionist Domingo “Sunny” Ortiz understands how it’s been labeled as a jam band.
“The bottom line, to me,” he says, “is it’s just rock ’n’ roll. A lot of people have pegged us as a jam band, Grateful Dead thing. I say there’s a lot more to it than that. But we do like to stretch out the songs and turn the 3:45 song into an 8:45 song. The whole experimental, jazz-jamming thing always intrigued. When I started playing in this band, that is what intrigued me the most. ... Jazz guys take off but always click back to where they need to be. John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra was a huge influence to me. So was the Beatles.”
Whereas the DMB and Blues Traveler were able to break on radio with Top 20 singles, Widespread Panic kept the focus on its niche audience.
“I don’t think we ever had a single,” Mr. Ortiz says. “When we did H.O.R.D.E., nobody knew who Dave Matthews, Spin Doctors, Melissa Etheridge and Big Head Todd and the Monsters were. Something happened along the line, whether it was the booking agent, the manager, the record company, something made those bands that are successful what they are because of the commerciality, the pop sound they may have had or grew into.
“If we were to have a downfall, it's that we only conform to what Widespread wants to conform to. We never had record people in the studio telling us what to do, what songs to embellish on, to make radio-friendly. We never did care about being a radio-friendly band. We only cared about playing music, and if record people didn’t like our songs, hey, it’s their option, they didn’t have to sign us.
The band has kept the emphasis on touring, having released its most recent album, “Dirty Side Down,” in 2010.
“We realized after all these years that our forte is touring. Not to say we might not have a Top 40 song — look at the Grateful Dead with ‘Touch of Grey.’ Look how many years they were on the circuit, then all of a sudden they have this video, MTV, and, bam, they’re in the mainstream. Of course, you have your great rock ’n’ roll artists, like Aerosmith, Rolling Stones, U2, they just write a song and it’s a hit. They have this pop-ish kind of sound. For us, it’s tough to classify.”
Panic recorded the follow-up to the “Dirty Side Down” album in Asheville, N.C., with producer John Keane (R.E.M., Indigo Girls) and will release it in September. Thus far, they have kept most of the new songs under wraps in terms of the live show.
On this tour, as in the fall, the band is backed by a member of the Allman family, Duane Brooks (nephew of Butch Trucks and brother of Derek), while Widespread drummer Todd Nance is out of action.
“Duane, 25 years old, gung-ho, can play music. He just comes from a musical family, big time. He’s done a great job for us. It's going to be different, but yet still the same, because we kind of dictate how things move around in the song realm of things. It’s a big deal for him.”
Next year, Widespread Panic will celebrate its 30th anniversary but has yet to come up with a special plan for that.
“We haven’t talked about it, because when you talk about it and start making plans, we all know in this kind of business, those plans can fall short,” he says. “There’s no jabber about any special treats. We just take things tour by tour and try not to have any great expectations other than to play the music that has been the mainstay for the last 30 years.”
Scott Mervis: smervis@post-gazette.com; 412-263-2576; Twitter: @scottmervis_pg.
First Published: June 18, 2015, 4:00 a.m.