‘GO BACK THE WAY YOU CAME’

Elephant Revival’s second life

BY JEZY J. GRAY

On the night before her band’s hotly anticipated reunion show last summer at Planet Bluegrass in Lyons, Elephant Revival co-founder Bonnie Paine dreamed about a staircase in the clouds. At the top was a huge transparent door: a threshold from one world to another — not unlike the one she was about to cross with fellow members of the longrunning Americana institution, fresh off a four-year hiatus that felt something like a lifetime.

“Basically it was a revelation: There are many ways to go back the way you came and make something beautiful happen. And you don’t have to jump off into the abyss of the clouds, which is the other option,” Paine says. “I was guided in the dream by a friend who had passed — I know it sounds like a stereotypical movie scene, but it felt very real, and I just woke up feeling reassured. Like, ‘Yes, let’s do this.’” Elephant Revival indeed came back the way they left, stepping onstage to a reverent roar from fans, friends and family as they ripped through a set of roots-inspired mountain music, indieadjacent jams and tender folk confessionals that have made the act a household name in the world of alternative Americana over the past two decades. Joined by aerial dancers and Lakota drum collective Lee Plentywolf & The Plentywolf Singers, the sold-out evening marked a new chapter for Paine and her bandmates as they greeted the arrival of their second life. Now the celebrated Front Range outfit comes back to Planet Bluegrass on Aug. 19, nearly one year to the day after first returning to the iconic venue. With singer and multi-instrumentalist Paine handling everything from cello to djembe and washboard, the group’s current formation is rounded out by fellow linchpins Bridget Law (fiddle), Dango Rose (upright bass and mandolin), Charlie Rose (banjo and pedal steel), Darren Garvey (percussion) and newcomer Daniel Sproul of Boulder rock legends Rose Hill Drive on guitar.

“There’s more space for tenderness in a different way,” Paine says of the current lineup. “Daniel Sproul is an insanely talented rock ’n’ roll guitarist, and [initially] I was like, ‘Well, I don’t know how that’s gonna fit.’ But it turns out he’s very sensitive to the beauty of space. He can just make these incredible textures come out of the songs … I’ve been very encouraged by the rest of the band. We’ve got so much material. It’s fun to get it out there.”

Elephant Revival comes back to Planet Bluegrass Aug. 19, a year after returning to the iconic stage on the heels of a four-year hiatus. Photo by Glenn Ross

Follow The Sound

The return of Elephant Revival to Boulder County’s most revered stage came after another pivotal headlining show at Red Rocks in 2018 with Blind Pilot and Hiss Golden Messenger, which would turn out to be their last for nearly half a decade. But according to fellow co-founder Dango Rose, it took a while to really appreciate the gravity of what that night meant for the time-honored collective.

“There was no way to really understand what the future was gonna bring,” says the Colorado music mainstay crucial to the group’s relocation here from Paine’s home in the the timbered foothills of northeastern Oklahoma almost 20 years ago. “I think what was going through my head, [like] many of the bigger shows, is: ‘How do I slow down the moment?’ … The biggest shock was two or three months later. It was like, ‘OK, this is the longest break we’ve had in 13 years. There’s nothing on the books, and we don’t know if there will ever be anything on the books again.’”

That period of uncertainty would give way to a deeper malaise lurking just around the corner, as the 2020 pandemic hit the brakes on the prospect of live music writ large. Paine spent that time sharpening the fine edges of her craft, meditating on the cycle of life and death while playing cello to the sheep who routinely clotted around the front porch of her rural Boulder County home.

“I don’t mind moving slowly to feel things out and figure out where we want to go,” she says. “It’s been an exploration process … and a very transformative time, like for a lot of people: loss and rebirth, and all kinds of stuff. It’s part of the gift and the challenge of these last few years.”

For Rose, the time apart offered space to reflect on the winding path that first brought Elephant Revival together at a Southern Plains bluegrass festival in 2003. With so much road in the rearview and more yet to travel, he says it was ultimately the connection between the outfit’s core players that helped pull them back from the brink and live to sing another day.

“Looking at the longevity, you realize what a gift it is that we are able to do this,” he says. “I really admire every single one of my bandmates … it wasn’t always easy, but we stayed with it. And I think that really comes from the underlying respect and appreciation we have for each other.” Rose says you’ll see that mutual respect on stage, wherever they might perform, as each player gives and takes with a sort of reverence. But to hear Paine tell it, there will be something special in the ether when they step under the spotlight once again at Planet Bluegrass.

“It’s such a sacred place to get to play music … you really feel the land around you,” she says. “Getting to address everybody in that openness with music is such an honor, and such an amazing feeling. The response [last time] was deafeningly loud — I was really surprised. Like, ‘All right, we’re here.’”

ON STAGE: Elephant Revival with Fruit Bats (solo). 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 19, Planet Bluegrass Ranch, 500 W. Main, Lyons. $65

Editor’s note: This article is being published amid allegations of sexual harassment against Planet Bluegrass owner Craig Ferguson, brought forward by a former employee through a lawsuit filed earlier this month in Boulder County District Court. For more on the developing story, see p. 13.