Hot Buttered Rum, Sassparilla, Ashleigh Flynn, Mimi Naja with Brad Parsons, Floating Pointe, the Blackberry Bushes

[POPGRASS] There’s an understandable, if unfair, tendency to automatically think “bluegrass” whenever a string band rears its head, but that’s a convention San Francisco quintet Hot Buttered Rum is more than happy to dispel. Over the course of a decade, and most starkly on 2009’s Limbs Akimbo, the band has evolved out of the jamboree mold, embracing traditional string music and infusing it with a slick pop sensibility, progressive signatures and improvised rock explosions that place it close to the String Cheese Incident without going overboard on the self-indulgent jamming. The band headlines the Crystal’s birthday bash, which also includes more traditional Seattle trio the Blackberry Bushes and rowdy PDX outfit Sassparilla.  

Where: Crystal Ballroom
Phone: 225-0047
Address: 1332 W Burnside St.
Website: www.mcmenamins.com