Max Creek

Thursday at 7:05 PM on the Main Stage

This Connecticut improv rock band had been part of the family from the festivals inception through 2003.

We were elated to bring the band back to the festival stage in 2009, and they’ve been returning to the Vibes stage ever since. The quintet added a new percussion section in 2011 and is sounding tighter and as timeless as they ever have. Max Creek are truly purveyors of the scene and are not to be missed at Gathering of The Vibes.

In those rare instances that a band reaches its fourth decade, it’s usually because of super-stardom. It’s easy enough to keep things together when each member has a jet and techs on retainer and the world tour rolls around every few years. But that’s not how Max Creek has done it. In 40+ years Max Creek has been small, big, regionally-huge, medium, and any other size one can think of; they’ve never graced the cover of Rolling Stone, but you’d be hard pressed to find a music fan in the Northeast that hadn’t heard of them.

From the beginning they’ve mixed anything they liked-rock, country, reggae, soul, calypso-in with their own excellent songs and it’s all just come out sounding like Creek. As such they’ve never been the hot item in the flavor-of-the-year club yet they’ve also never gone out of style. Moreover, Creek exudes confidence but lacks ego; each member is an incredible musician but that’s never been what it was about.

Creek itself is multigenerational. Though the “front line” of guitarist Scott Murawski, keyboardist Mark Mercier and bassist John Rider has remained intact since the mid-70s, the back line recently shifted. Long time drummers Greg Vasso and Scott Allshouse both moved on from group, opening the door for the drums and percussion team of Bill Carbone and Jamemurrell Stanley, neither of whom were alive when the band was founded.

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