Tenth Mountain Division | 2022-06-23 | Rancho Del Rio, Bond, CO [SBD/AUD Matrix]

The opportunity to help bring you all Tenth Mountain Division performing at Beanstalk Music Festival is all we need to get by.

On the first day of the Beanstalk Music Festival, those that had come the previous year had a lot of reasons to be optimistic. For starters, the weather was already looking better than it had the year before. The 2021 festival started with weather so horrendous, all bands except the Beans themselves had to have their sets postponed until the following day. To the contrary, Team Bean this year was met with the perfect weather they had grown so accustomed to at Rancho Del Rio in late June. Past all that, the festival kicked off with Colorado’s own Tenth Mountain Division making their return to the festival after a five-year hiatus. Weather-wise, it seemed as if they had never left.

The set started with one of the band’s older tunes, the fierce ode to intoxication, “Drunk Man’s Blues”. The song served as a great opener for the festival, easing the crowd in with a funky intro and getting everyone’s attention with its fiery anthemic chorus. This was followed by the optimistic tune “Opportunity”, a song whose lyrics felt like the perfect metaphor for not only the way the audience members interact with each other, but how the Denver music community as a whole seems to interact with one another. The band then launched into the more morose “Who’s On That Train?”, which was very on brand considering the back drop at Rancho, featuring a railway that often times had both passenger and freight trains intermittently making their way through the canyon, begging the very question, “Who IS on that train?” The song featured a feverish trade-off of solos between the keys, mandolin, and guitar, all enveloped in the added percussive sensibilities of perpetual Magic Beans sixth man, Will Trask, who joined the band for the entire set.

The set then followed with the blues-rock driven (no pun-intended) “Drivin’”, a song that roused the crowd to kick up some sand as they became further ingrained in the set. Keeping the rock vibe alive, next the band played “Hot Sweaty South”, before taking a more melodic dive with their original “9-5” — not to be confused with the Dolly Parton classic “9 to 5”, which the band would also play later in the set, featuring the vocals of Maria Angelika helping pay proper tribute to the Tennessee legend. This wouldn’t be the only sit-in for the set, as the band invited up the weekend’s host, Magic Beans front-man Scott Hachey for their final tune, “Drown You With A Bottle”, another song about drinking that fittingly ended the set with the same theme that started it.

Tenth Mountain Division’s set opened Beanstalk in a big way, with rock-flavored originals, tinged by a grassy-folk touch and delivered in a package that could be left at the door of any fan. While their previous appearance had been half a decade ago, the band’s set shows they never left the community behind. Their ability to craft infectiously singable songs spiced up with more folk and, at times, ragtime-esque elements, helps bring a sophisticated take on a sound we all know so well. Tenth Mountain Division, like their namesake, knows how to bring the fight to the mountains, or at least bring the rock. Enjoy!

Tenth Mountain Division | 2022-06-23 | Beanstalk Music & Mountains Festival at Rancho Del Rio, Bond, CO

-= One Set =-

01. Drunk Man’s Blues

02. Opportunity

03. Who’s On That Train?

04. Drivin’

05. Hot Sweaty South

06. 9-5[1]

07. Highland morning

08. Space Captain (Steve Miller Band cover)

09. Burnin’ Heart (Elvis Presley cover)

10. 9 to 5 (Dolly Parton cover)[2]

11. River’s Rising (Leftover Salmon cover)

12. Drown You With A Bottle[3]

Show Notes: This set was performed on the first day of the Beanstalk Music and Mountains Festival. This was the festival’s ten-year anniversary. This set was performed on the Main Stage. This was also the opening set of the festival. Will Trask (Analog Son) sat-in for the entire set. Wes Rather (Flash Mountain Flood) was also featured on guitar for the entire set.

[1] “9-5” contained a segment of “Dear Prudence” (The Beatles).

[2] “9 to 5” featured Maria Angelika on vocals

[3] “Drown You With A Bottle” featured Scott Hachey (Magic Beans) on additional guitar.

Taper Notes: FOB DFC mics raised around 7′ PAS. There was some level adjustment during the first track but isn’t too noticebale and levels out. The guitar was running hot until “Drivin'” but then levels out as well. Board patch and mix thanks to FOH Engineer Eric Crumb.

LINK: https://archive.org/details/TMD2022-06-23.StudioProjects.C4.MKII.cards.AUD.SBD.Matrix.FLAC16bit