It’s Sunday, 31 December 2023, and the String Cheese Incident are helping the Bay Area reclaim status as a top-flight destination for New Year’s Eve concerts at the Fox Theater in uptown Oakland. There was an odd void in options last year, but 2023 is another story with attractive shows for party people also including Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall and LCD Soundsystem at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. But it’s String Cheese Incident that offers the most musical mileage in the region with a three-set show that promises to deliver nearly four hours of music.
The three-set New Year’s show is a long-time tradition in the improvisation rock scene, and the String Cheese Incident have been one of the leading purveyors of such special events in the 21st century. This includes some local history with New Year’s shows at San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in 2001 and 2002 with their Superheroes Costume Ball and Time Traveler’s Ball. That seems like another era now with 20 years of hindsight, back when San Francisco was still the nation’s capital for the psychedelic rock counterculture before Denver took the title this past decade by luring younger music fans with a more economical cost of living.
It’s amazing in retrospect how New Year’s Eve 2002-2003 in the Bay Area featured no less than five marquee shows with the String Cheese Incident’s Time Traveler’s Ball, the Other Ones at the Oakland Coliseum, Sound Tribe Sector 9 at San Francisco’s Regency Theater, Galactic at SF’s Warfield Theater, and Les Claypool’s Frog Brigade at the Fillmore. String Cheese Incident delivered an extravaganza that included takes on Pink Floyd’s “Time” and “Time Warp” from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, as well as numerous hot jams that led to the show’s release in the band’s “On the Road” live series.
This year’s event is billed as an “Aquatic Soiree” to cap a three-night run celebrating String Cheese Incident’s 30th anniversary, with each set representing a succeeding decade in their illustrious career. Keeping a traveling rock ‘n’ roll band going for three decades is a significant achievement, so it’s a big night for the band and the fans who have been following these sonic adventurers for so many years.
String Cheese Incident waste zero time as they hit the stage promptly at 8:00 pm to deliver a jampacked 90-minute set exploring the classic repertoire of their first decade. Good vibes are conjured early on with “Smile” leading into “Joyful Sound” from 2001’s Outside Inside album, as bassist Keith Moseley sings about wanting to “sing a feel good song”. The band makes it feel really good when they dig in for an extended melodic jam that starts getting the Fox rocking, before segueing into longtime fan favorite “Born on the Wrong Planet”. The funky title track from their 1997 debut album finds electric mandolin ace Michael Kang stepping up with vocals that seem to allude to how both he and many fans of the band have souls that incarnated on Earth from other parts of the cosmos.
It doesn’t get a big jam this time around (like the memorable performance at Mt. Shasta Ski Park in 2001), but it does infuse a heady cosmic vibe into the show. Moseley’s “Resume Man” is another deep-cut gem from the debut record, with a honky tonk R&B sound that makes it feel like it could air on Tom Petty’s “Buried Treasure” show on Sirius XM radio (where Petty’s ghost seems to live on as a DJ). Guitarist Bill Nershi stars on “Texas”, his classic counterculture tale of imperial entanglements in the Lone Star state. It’s another fan-favorite jam vehicle that typically appears in a second set, so getting it here in the first set shows String Cheese Incident out to deliver the goods to fire up the Fox.
String Cheese Incident are chomping at the bit because the 90-minute first set is followed by an abbreviated set break that finds them back onstage for the second set in what seems like just 15-20 minutes. “Colliding” adds some jamtronica elements to the sound to fire things back up, as keyboardist Kyle Hollingsworth sings of everyone colliding to “come together redefining” before the band rocks the groove deep. “Sometimes a River” from 2005’s One Step Closer album is a melodic mid-tempo gem from Moseley that opens up for an elevating jam as the audience falls into a collective groove.
Nershi’s “One Step Closer” evolves from a straight-ahead love song into a rousing jam that gets the audience further energized before String Cheese Incident pur gas on the fire with “Valley of the Jig” from 2003’s Untying the Knot. The instrumental jam ingeniously blends what feels like a medieval melody from Kang’s fiddle with an electrifying trance dance groove powered by the fierce beats of drummer Michael Travis and percussionist Jason Hann. The tune never fails to ignite, and the Fox is really lit now. The simmering “Sirens” provides a bit of a breather with Moseley singing about the random twists of fate that can upend our lives, before the band drops one more bomb to close the second set with Kang’s “Desert Dawn”. The incendiary tune has been one of String Cheese Incident’s premiere jam vehicles for more than 20 years, and so it is here as Kang rips melty hot riffage over a smoking groove to ignite the night.
When String Cheese Incident returns for the third set, the members are all dressed in shimmery green outfits with odd-looking Devo-style yellow hats, costumes apparently in tribute to Wes Anderson’s 2004 cult classic film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. “Sweet Spot” from 2017’s Believe album feels like a fitting opener since the Fox Theater has felt like a sweet spot to be “all night long”, as the song’s lyrics reference. Nershi’s reflective tune “Eventually” from 2023’s new album Lend a Hand feels like a brilliant selection to close out a tumultuous year for humanity. When he sings, “Who I am and who I wanna be, gonna take some time, but I’ll get there, eventually”, it hits deep in the feels for anyone who might feel like their life isn’t quite where they wanted it to be at the end of 2023, yet is still feeling hopeful for the new year.
Placing a tune like “Eventually” in a slot such as this enables improv-oriented bands with huge repertoires, like the String Cheese Incident, to generate soul-soothing synchronicity that groups who play the same set every night generally aren’t capable of. As midnight nears, String Cheese Incident elevate the energy level with Kang’s “Into the Blue” from 2022’s EP of the same title. The upbeat tune has a jammy vibe with some syncopated percussion to drive the beat, while Kang sings out, “I know the journey’s long, and I’m sure you’ll find your way… you’ve come so far, and now it’s back into the blue.”
The uplifting “Into the Blue” feels like it will soon be another String Cheese Incident classic as the band jams out while midnight approaches, with Hann really pushing the beat with his energetic percussion. A shimmery female dancer with glowing sticks that look like lightsabers appears on stage and then balances on a ball while twirling. There’s been a dazzling psychedelic light show all night that makes her seem like an interdimensional acrobatic goddess of some sort who has come to help the String Cheese Incident navigate time and space for a new year. A countdown takes place, and festive mayhem occurs as balloons and confetti drop while the band keeps jamming, generating a multi-dimensional aquatic psychedelia that dazzles the senses.
“All We Got”, a String Cheese Incident Sound Lab single from 2019, keeps the dance party going with a festive trance dance jam that blends an electronic element with some disco vibes. “The Big Reveal” – another Sound Lab single from 2018 – is a winner, too, with the band rocking out on a tune that references time slowing down. This seems fitting since the concept of time seems to have faded because the jams are flowing, and everyone is in the moment. The bluegrassy “Colorado Bluebird Sky” closes out the set with a festive flourish, but the band quickly returns for a big encore with the groovy psychedelia of “Hi Ho No Show” from the Into the Blue EP.
The tune feels similar to “Valley of the Jig” at first in how it blends old-time melodies with modern soundscapes but soon takes off into a soaring jam space of its own. The percussion is off the hook, the electronic synths are super trippy, and the blend of sounds from past and present generates a futuristic vibe that makes it feel like the String Cheese Incident are still at the top of their game. The climactic jam puts a sensational exclamation point on what’s been an epic soiree. When the audience exits out into the cool Oakland evening, it feels like the sky’s the limit for 2024.