August 2010
McCracken To Play At B3 Showdown 8/21 In St. Pete
On Saturday, 8/21/10, Donna the Buffalo keyboardist David McCracken will perform at a very special event, the Hammond B3 Showdown N'awlins Style, which will take place at the Palladium at St. Petersburg College (253 Fifth Ave. N, St. Petersburg, FL). At this show, Dave and fellow B3 masters Joe Krown and John Gros each will play his own set with the legendary Russell Baptiste Jr. (Funky Meters) on drums and Walter Wofman Washington on guitar; Dave's set will also feature former DtB bassist Jay Sanders. On his site, www.folkswaggin.com, David writes "My set will include funky psychedlic jams and material by the likes of organ greats Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff and Jimmy McGriff and Steve Winwood." For more info or for tickets, visit www.spcollege.edu/palladium or call 727-822-3590. If you're going to this show, feel free to send me your photos of Dave's set: fans@donnafans.com. (posted 8/19/10) First Photos: Bands on the Bricks, 8/6/10 Rochester, NY
On Friday, 8/6/10, Donna the Buffalo returned to Rochester, NY for the band's second appearance in this city in 2010. The event was Band on the Bricks at the Rochester Public Market. DtB has performed at this free concert series each August for the past several years. Photos of this gig come to us from the same two DonnaFans.com contributors who provided photography from DtB's last show in Rochester, the Lilac Festival on 5/21/10. John Miklasz kindly shares with us 12 photos of Donna the Buffalo playing in Rochester, NY on 8/6/10, while Greg Cotterill generously provides 11 photos from this same night. The band opened the show with Ring of Fire and went on to play a set that included It's Love Time, It's a New Day, Conscious Evolution, and the relatively new Jeb Puryear song We're Working on That, which the band debuted at Great Blue Heron Festival in Sherman, NY on 7/4/10. The show was opened by the Lawnmowers and Ry Cuming, who also joined DtB for one song. Thanks for the photos, guys!
(posted 8/14/10) GrassRoots Photos, Part 3: Saturday 7/24/10
Of all of the sets Donna the Buffalo performs at each year's GrassRoots Festival, the Saturday night gig is the hardest to photograph: It's dark, the Infield crowd is typically huge, and getting close enough to the stage to take decent shots can be a challenge. But longtime DonnaFans.com contributor John Yust knows the drill, and comes through with 9 excellent photos of DtB playing on 7/24/10 in Trumansburg, NY. John's shots include a few images of Joe Thrift, the former DtB keyboardist who sat in on Part-Time Lover and Hot Tamale Baby; Paige Lindsey also joined in on tambourine for the latter. Other highlights of this set included Rockin' Horse, If You Only Could, a superb and super-extended version of Me and Depression, Funky Side, and Jeb and Tara doing Seems to Want to Hurt This Time as the encore. Thanks for the photos, John! (posted 8/8/10) More Amazing Photos From GrassRoots, Trumansburg, NY
One of the things that makes every GrassRoots Festival unique is the special guests who join Donna the Buffalo, especially during the band's festival-ending Sunday night sets. What made this year's GrassRoots collaborations particularly memorable was the abundance of former DtB members who joined their old bandmates at various points during the festival. Former DtB keyboardist Joe Thrift sat in on scrubboard for parts of all 3 of DtB's GrassRoots sets. In addition to performing her own set in the Cabaret, former DtB keyboardist Kathy Ziegler sat in with Jeb & Them on Saturday and with DtB on Sunday night on both keys and guitar. And former DtB drummer Tom Gilbert helped Jeb, Tara, and David McCracken back The Believers, and also sat in for a good part of DtB's Sunday night set. These former DtB members were only a few of the close to 30(!) guests who sat in on Sunday night's epic gig, which started at about 9 pm and ended at 1:45 am. Amazingly, DonnaFans.com Larry Franklin captured photos of all of this and then some, and kindly shares with us 15 photos of DtB and friends performing at GrassRoots in Trumansburg, NY on 7/23/10 - 7/25/10. How he managed to be in all of the right places at all of the right times is anyone's guess, but we're sure grateful he was. Thanks, Larry! (posted 8/3/10)
