event Widespread Panic

Widespread Panic isn’t going to convert any of the many jam-band haters, but the six-piece Georgia band doesn’t seem particularly concerned with trying. (Considering how few bands could pack The Riverside Theater for three consecutive nights, they don’t need to.) The group has shown a strong work ethic with a constant stream of material over the years—the Panic tends to play more than 200 shows a year and has been at it since 1985. Its 2008 album, Free Somehow, shows that the group still can’t make much convincing sense of how to translate its rock-tinged onstage noodling to the studio, but that probably explains why it has almost as much live recorded output, including the recent Montreal 1997.

Widespread Panic isn’t going to convert any of the many jam-band haters, but the six-piece Georgia band doesn’t seem particularly concerned with trying. (Considering how few bands could pack The Riverside Theater for three consecutive nights, they don’t need to.) The group has shown a strong work ethic with a constant stream of material over the years—the Panic tends to play more than 200 shows a year and has been at it since 1985. Its 2008 album, Free Somehow, shows that the group still can’t make much convincing sense of how to translate its rock-tinged onstage noodling to the studio, but that probably explains why it has almost as much live recorded output, including the recent Montreal 1997.

Widespread Panic isn’t going to convert any of the many jam-band haters, but the six-piece Georgia band doesn’t seem particularly concerned with trying. (Considering how few bands could pack The Riverside Theater for three consecutive nights, they don’t need to.) The group has shown a strong work ethic with a constant stream of material over the years—the Panic tends to play more than 200 shows a year and has been at it since 1985. Its 2008 album, Free Somehow, shows that the group still can’t make much convincing sense of how to translate its rock-tinged onstage noodling to the studio, but that probably explains why it has almost as much live recorded output, including the recent Montreal 1997.