Hey Friends, We’ve been from the Rockies to New England this Summer but our Mid Western dates have arrived….. Friday Aug. 5th in Springfield, MO @ Lindbergs, 7pm Saturday Aug. 6th @ the Dawg Days Festival, 10pm And HillBenders Fest Friday and Saturday Night Sept. 2nd and 3rd, with special guest bands, food, and activities! check out our tour page for details!!

Sorry folk but we heard some copies of the Fun Kit (Chad and Jim’s Solo record) have been defective. I assure you it was not intended. We have been in contact with our duplicator and we are fixing the problem. We sold around 50 so far and we think about 1/4 of those have static noise on them, we hope less than that, if you have received a defective disc please contact us via e-mail and we will send you another copy. Dang that technology!!!!! Thanks, Chad and Jim

Well i think The HillBenders spent so much time waiting for June to get here that it done snuck up on us! Its hard to believe that it has already been a year since we were preparing to go to Telluride to compete in the band comp. and here we are. One year later, And we are SUPER thrilled about the upcoming tour!

Friday 11th at Mojo’s in Columbia, MO

Saturday 12th in Bevington Iowa at the Briar Patch Amphitheater,

Sunday 13th at The Mountain Sun Brewery in Boulder, CO

Monday 14th at Avogadro’s Number in Fort Collins, CO,

Tuesday 15th Pagosa Pub Works Brewpub in Pagosa Springs, CO

Wednesday 16th The Summit in Durango, CO

and then

TELLURIDE!!!!!!! Can not wait!! two days of resting and festivarian life and then:

Saturday 19th

11:15am to 12:15pm on the main stage,

5:15pm we will be doing a fun little workshop at the Elks Park stage on “Life as an emerging group in Bluegrass/Acoustic music” talking about everything from songwriting to arrangements, traveling and so on.

10pm at the Fly Me to the Moon for Nightgrass with the Carolina Chocolate Drops!

then

Sunday 20th Steve’s Guitar’s in Carbondale, CO

Tuesday 22nd in Huntington Beach, CA

Thursday 24th Orpheum Theatre with Cherryholmes in Phoenix, AZ

Now if that don’t sound like a fun way to spend your month i don’t know what would! Keep an ear out there may be more shows added to the end of this list too!

WOO HOO im gonna go start packing!

See you on the road!

-gravy

Well, we did it again. We went, we saw, we competed, we sweat profusely, we stressed heavily, and we came home with another championship title (and a nice big paycheck)! The competition this weekend at Silver Dollar City was memorable to say the least. With so many awesome competitors we really had our work cut out for us, but we came prepared for battle. The thought of competition in music is not something any of us really like that much, comparing so many different styles and approaches to the craft is not an easy task and rarely is there truly a clear victor. But i guess if somebody had to win, I’m sure glad it was us! I’d like to give a shout out to all the great bands that we competed against. Soo many of you are incredibly talented and deserve much success in your future. It was an honor sharing the stage with you all and we look forward to seeing many of you again down the road.

-N

Tough Competition. I really enjoyed meeting and talking to the other bands and meeting a lot of missouri pickers I hadn’t met yet.

Huge line of storms ahead. Tornados hitting Arkansas hard. We’re in route to El Dorado Arkansas. Stay tuned.

The HillBenders had a great time on this short little Colorado run.

Started out the tour with a 16 hour straight drive to Steamboat Springs. Emerged from the cocoon we call the ‘Bender Bus’ and crashed out before a long day of shows. Started Saturday by wheeling over to the Old Town Pub and picking up our new CDs, which we had mailed there straight from the printers. Cheers all around as we opened the box and finally got to hold in our hands the proof of the hard work and long waiting. Feels so good to have a product we are all proud of and excited to get it into the hands of our friends and fans! Went from there to play an early one at the Bear River Bar and Grill outside on the deck below the ski slopes. Our good friend Mucho Robusto came out. We love that dude.

That night found us at the Old Town Pub. If you ever find yourself hungry in Steamboat Springs, go to the Old Town Pub. Nolan and I rocked the Rib Eye. Jimmy got the bad news they were out of the Buffalo Ribs and went with the Slider Sampler. Gary and Mark rocked the Sheppards Pie. RJ had the Trout. General consensus was the food was incredible. Makes it hard to play with that much good food in your tummy but we endured. And had a great night, maybe had a little too much fun, because when 8am came around, it was hard waking up that day. We finally got around like a bunch of bluegrass zombies and loaded the ‘Bender Bus’ for a 3 hour drive to Arvada to play at Jakes Roadhouse.

If I was a big burley biker, who rode a big burley bike and big burley leather vest over my big burley bare chest, I would hang out at Jakes every day. Well actually even if I wasn’t I would hang out at Jakes every day. Something about that place just made me think I was in a biker movie. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. The show there went pretty good considering we all were so exhausted. RJ slammed a 5 hour energy and we made the drive back to Steamboat.

Our last show was for Steamboat Ski Corp, we played their employee party, as the last day of ski season was sunday. We had a great time out there. Keep an eye out for Sal Malone. (I think that’s right) This kids got some talent! He did the HillBenders set breaks. Just a random toddler who came up and out entertained us ten fold with a song about New Orleans and one about Elvis. All acapella. Thanks to Lindsey for the help and making us feel at home.

We just left the Ome Banjo shop. Chuck is an awesome guy with a great little setup and some killer banjos. He was kind enough to give us a tour and show us all of his incredible instruments in the works.

Was a great stress free tour thanks to RJ, who is in the running for the HillBenders road manager slot. We can’t thank him enough for all the hard work on this trip. Making sure the hotels are there, gigs were ready, band was on schedule and taking care of every hump along the way. Including the two blown speakers. Major thanks to Trevor Potter for the rental on the speakers and for helping us put together this little tour.

The ”Bender Bus’ is now headed back to Missouri to get these CDs out to all the DJs so you can start hearing some “Down to My Last Dollar” over the airwaves! See you in 12 hours Springfield!

-Gravy

WE’VE GOT CDS!

HillBenders love Colorado!

Hackin’ at the truckstop.