Big Bad News from Widespread Panic Options

[Kymra]

Although it's not "official" yet - Widespread Panic is now down another guitarist. George McConnell is leaving the band, and is out of the rotation as of tonight. Words cannot even say how bummed I am about this. They are my 2nd favorite band...

I came into the jamband scene kind of late. When I met my husband I was a total city chick still listening to my alternative bands ( which is still my main type of music) . I had a hard time getting into his beloved Grateful Dead at first, but there was also Widespread. I was able to get into them a bit more, but it was still a huge leap in music styles.

For those of you who don't know the history, founding member and guitarist Mike Houser died of Pancreatic Cancer in 2002. The person he picked to replace him was George. Although I was in the minority, I thought George ( GMAC) added an energy to the music and made it way more interesting... but fans could never be happy with him, cause he wasn't Mikey. So little by little he's been pushed out of the band.

I'm gonna miss him, and am not half as excited to go on tour next month.
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[Senghe]

It's always a worry when band members leave as you never know if that's going to be the catalyst for the band tipping over the edge and breaking up. But a lot of bands have a constantly rotating line up and it never seems to do them any harm.

I'm going through this with one of my favourite bands. Joe the bass player has left. Seeing as he's one of the founding members, there are only three of them in the band to begin with and they've been having a few label difficulties of late, I thought that was the end of that. But they've drafted in the lead singer's little brother (ha - how Live is that - he-he!) on bass duties and I have high hopes from the sound Greg's own band. I can't wait to hear him and Dave sing together - as long as he's as good a bass player as he is a vocalist and guitarist, it's going to be great.