Why Did We Play This? A Series: 8/9/25 Berry Bush Farms, Pittsfield, Pa.

[This is (maybe) an ongoing series looking at older and newer gigs by my band The Wolf Tones, which places a strong emphasis on improvisation and does not pick a setlist in advance... so why did we play these songs this time? Let us explore...]

There are no photos available for this show. Everyone was having too much fun. It makes sense, because to my ears, this is one of the best musical performances I've been part of. This show came at the tail end of a quick succession of six shows in 10 days (including the 8/2/25 set in my last post). We were packin' a lot of gigs into the summer of 2025, and the entire band was primed and ready for what turned out to be a three-hour double-set monster. It also came after our first few months of playing more gigs using effect pedals. During our monthly engagements at the Thunderbird, there's no room for all that gear on the bar stage. But I think that worked to our benefit — we learned to listen closely to one another and create new sounds and jams first, without having to lean on effects to make the weirdness happen... so once we did add the effects, we could really take things into the outer reaches of space.

Was it perfect? No. Were there things I'd have done differently? Sure. But let's not dwell on the negatives. Let's get into it:

Early set: Roving Gambler (soundcheck), Good Hearted Woman > Natural Mystic > EMD > Jam > Money > Columbus Stockade Blues, Cat House, Ghost Train, Loved You Enough > Raspberry Beret > Down Where the River Bends > Sound System > Colt 45 > Breathe > That's It*

*Original

Right from the soundcheck, things were clicking. We hit "Roving Gambler" at a breakneck pace and kept things humming with Willie Nelson's "Good Hearted Woman." In what I personally consider a good sign, we started getting jammy with the quickness and dipped an early toe into reggae with Bob Marley's "Natural Mystic," detouring into a pretty short version of David Grisman's "EMD" before hopping back on the reggae bus with another appearance of Cornell Campbell's "Money."

We capped off a 25-minute show opening jam with "Columbus Stockade Blues," which could pop up anytime we're in A-minor. It's a great dramatic punch, with some well-timed stops and a driving chord progression.

I don't know who wrote "Cat House," but it's great, just a funny, funky blues about living in a house full of stray cats. And "Ghost Train" by Earl Taylor has a dramatic energy-lifting quality similar to "Columbus Stockade."

And then, unbeknownst to us, it was time for the 45-minute jam that would lead all the way to end of the first set. We kept the traditional tunes going with Yonder Mountain's "Loved You Enough," but then the funk took over, as a Nemo bass solo provoked me into firing up the auto-wah pedal and launching into a rare first-set "Raspberry Beret."

Coming out of "Raspberry," however, some things began happening that were the start of something very good. With a quick stomp on the "Godzilla pedal," Joe tossed off some rusty distorted banjo blasts, and just like that we shot off into dissonant, menacing spacey weirdness that exploded and then rapidly settled into the lovely soldier's ballad, "Down Where the River Bends."

I remember thinking how cool it was that we were able to dissolve into chaos and just as quickly re-form and start the next song.

Put a pin in that.

We slowly cranked it back up and did our only punk cover, Operation Ivy's "Sound System," but the funk snuck right back in and Joe was feelin' Afro Man's "Colt 45." That darkened and slowly blossomed into Pink Floyd's "Breathe," before we funked things up one last time to end the set with my tune, "That's It."

Late set: Way Down in the Hole > Jam > Glass Onion > Space > Southern Nights > Jam > Neon Moon, Jaw Jam > Let It Shine** > Later On, By the Rivers of Babylon > Jam > Bananas & Blow, Cold Cold Heart > Two Hits & the Joint Turned Brown > Jam > N.I.B. > Shady Grove > Werewolves of London, E: Clinch Mountain Backstep > Rainbow in the Dark

This second-set opening jam is, to me, the most enjoyable 35 minutes of music I've helped to create, starting with the theme from HBO's "The Wire." It slowly dissolved into a sort of "All Along the Watchtower" jam (a chord progression that would return later in the set) before we settled in for the next song. I'm a big fan of odd chord progressions, and the Beatles' "Glass Onion" tickles all the right parts of my brain. There's a G-minor chord in the verses that flips the mood from weirdly ominous to slightly dreamy.

But it's the jam out of "Glass Onion" that really stands out, and to be sure, it's not going to be for everybody.

Our operating philosophy in this band, as I've stated before, is just keep playing. Listen closely to everyone else and strive to create new sounds. And in terms of pure creativity, this "Space" jam was up there for us. The chord structure of "Glass Onion" begins to fall away, and soon we're drifting slowly into outer space. Then Joe hit his "Freeze" pedal at just the right time to make his banjo sound like a far-off train-whistle drone, the floor dropped out from beneath us and we dove into pure free musical space. 

Where is this going to go? There is a brief moment where you hear all of us sort of hesitating a second to ponder the question. Then Joe starts activating The Godzilla Pedal, Nemo starts a bass arpeggio way up on the neck, and just like that we begin drifting back down to Earth through the chord progression for the next tune.

One of my very favorite things about an excellent Grateful Dead show was the band's ability to pick the exact right moment to start the next song. At this show, we come out of this spacey jam and, in my opinion, drop perfectly into the riff to start Glen Campbell's "Southern Nights." And that's probably not something we could've planned at a rehearsal. In the moment, it felt right, and we went for it.

We rounded out the set-opening jam with a '90s country ballad, Brooks & Dunn's "Neon Moon." Then we brought our pal Pat Keddie onstage. Initially it was to do a fun little jam with him on the jaw harp, but being that we were in such a rare mood, it quickly expanded into a mystical musical space, with some very spiritual spontaneous lyrics in a tune that's now called "Let It Shine."

The next little section is the only place where I would change anything about this show. Coming out of a very serious, somber piece of improv with Pat, I absent-mindedly started playing the beginning of Dan Bern's "Later On." It's a goofy song about beer and titties that we'd talked about doing at some point. I thought it made sense because Pat and Nemo used to sing it together at their duo shows, and Pat was already onstage. But if you listen to the tape, you can hear Joe say, "Is this what we wanna play coming out of that?" And if I'd thought about it a little harder, I'd have said no. What we should've done is swap it with the plaintive reggae tune "By the Rivers of Babylon," that came afterward. That would have been another perfect transition/song drop. But hey, you can't nail 'em all in the moment.

Next we cranked things up a little and —speaking of the Grateful Dead — teased a little bit of an "Other One" jam before bringing out one of our favorite late-set tunes, Ween's "Bananas & Blow," during which Joe busted a string. That prompted a quick return to classic country with Hank Williams' "Cold Cold Heart." Joe rejoined us and we made a quick pivot to Yonder Mountain's "Two Hits & the Joint Turned Brown," which got a bit spacey before transmogrifying into a neat little descending jam that took its cues from the "Watchtower" jam earlier in the set.

I think that perked up Nemo's ear, because all of a sudden he called out a song none of us knew and had never played, Black Sabbath's "N.I.B." But as with many one-off tunes, he was able to quickly turn to us and map out the chord progression. And again, this is something that never would have happened in a planned-out setlist. It brought the energy level way back up and kept it going through the final two songs of the late set, the traditional "Shady Grove" and one of our perennial closers, Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London."

We wrapped the night with an encore that perfectly encapsulates the philosophy of The Wolf Tones: The old trad instrumental, "Clinch Mountain Backstep," mashed up with a grassy version of Dio's hair-metal classic, "Rainbow in the Dark."

I think it's hilarious that this show is one of our best, and yet it's nowhere close to the top in terms of most-streamed sets on Archive.org.