The second annual L.A. Bluegrass Situation gets under way at Largo tonight and continues through the weekend with sold-out shows each night. The event kicks off with a performance from the Watkins Family Hour, featuring Sara and Sean Watkins. Punch Brothers headline tomorrow night. Ed Helms, the festival's curator, and Steve Martin, both friends of Punch Brothers, perform the following nights. "We’re both fans of the band," Helms tells the Los Angeles Times.
The second annual L.A. Bluegrass Situation gets under way at Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles tonight and continues through the weekend with sold-out shows each night. The event kicks off with a performance from the Watkins Family Hour, featuring siblings Sara Watkins and Sean Watkins, joined by more family, friends, and special guests. Punch Brothers headline tomorrow night, with very special guests on tap as well.
Saturday night, Ed Helms, a good friend of the Punch Brothers and curator of the festival, hosts the Whiskey Sour Radio Hour, his own twisted take on the old-time, radio variety show. For two sets, Helms, star of The Office and The Hangover, and his all-star comedy compatriots share the stage with musicians plucked from the L.A. Bluegrass Situation line-up.
The festival closes out on Sunday night with a performances from another comedy legend, Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers. Martin is no stranger to the Punch Brothers either: he invited the band to join him for a few tour dates last year and sat in with them on the Late Show with David Letterman last fall, when Martin awarded Punch Brothers banjoist Noam Pikelny the inaugural Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass.
The Los Angeles Times spoke with Steve Martin and Ed Helms for a feature article on their shared interests in comedy and the banjo, in which Helms explains how they first met. "We met through Noam (Pikelny, of the Punch Brothers)," he explains. "I freeloaded a lunch here at Steve’s house when Steve invited the Punch Brothers over for lunch. We’re both fans of the band." Read the article at latimes.com.
For more on this weekend's sold-out events, visit largo-la.com.
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