Bela Fleck & The Flecktones Perform First Concert of Inaugural Season at The Smith Center
Bela Fleck & the Flecktones have garnered a GRAMMY nomination for best instrumental composition for “Life In Eleven,” off their hit 2011 record, Rocket Science and they performed at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts on March 12, 2012 (Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com).
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
The much anticipated reunion record marked the original founding members of the Flecktones’ first recording together in 20 years and immediately jumped to #1 on both Billboard’s Jazz Charts and Soundscan’s Jazz Charts upon its release. Rolling Stone notes Rocket Science “finds the Grammy Award-winning group still in fine progressive form.”
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
The final US tour with the original lineup of the Flecktones launches on March 1 in Madison, WI and rolls across the country through the end of April, culminating with a performance at the W. L. Lyons Brown Theatre in Louisville, which is the city where the band played their first show together on The Lonesome Pine Special. Other stops include San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, and Nashville.
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
The collaboration of Bela Fleck (banjo), Howard Levy (piano/harmonica), Victor Wooten (bass), and Roy “Futureman” Wooten (percussion/Drumitar) has been leaving audiences mesmerized, surprising fans with groundbreaking compositions and nontraditional improvisation. After a recent show at New York’s legendary Town Hall, Relix Magazine commended the group’s “incredibly impressive and well-executed” musicianship, noting “the crowd was silent throughout the majority of the show, only erupting into applause between songs and after impeccable solos.”
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
Rocket Science has been met with wide critical acclaim. Jazz Times was impressed by the compositions, which “are all quite bold, showcasing everyone’s versatility and highlighting the collective power of the band,” while All About Jazz declared “Rocket Science recaptures everything that made The Flecktones so fresh, so innovative, so important.” Popmatters called it “an album of stirring ingenuity from musicians rediscovering each other and having tremendous fun doing so,” while Downbeat praised, “Together, these are four of the finest musicians on the planet. They push, pull and complement each other to create a sound that is unmistakably their own.”
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
The Smith Center for the Performing Arts is a public/private partnership that will become the centerpiece of cultural life in Las Vegas, offering a blend of performances by resident companies, as well as first-run touring attractions. The 5-acre cultural campus will feature three performance spaces, the 2,050-seat main performance area in Reynolds Hall and Boman Pavilion’s 258-seat Cabaret Jazz and 250-seat Troesh Studio Theater, and will also be home to a 1.7 acre park, which can be used for outdoor concerts. Additionally, the campus will be the new location of the Discovery Children’s Museum. The Smith Center will be the cultural center for Las Vegas – a place that will educate, entertain and excite the citizens of our great community. Located in downtown’s 61-acre urban development, Symphony Park, The Smith Center broke ground in May of 2009 with a ceremonial carillon bell casting and ringing. In February 2010, it celebrated its “Topping Out” with the raising of 50 tons of steel. The Smith Center will open in March 2012. For more information about The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, please visit www.thesmithcenter.com. Keep up with news and events on Facebook.
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones perform at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Photo: © Erik Kabik/ www.erikkabik.com.
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