We ask you, what Freight opening weekend would be complete without a pull-out-all-the-stops, raise-the-roof Bluegrass Blowout? Tonight's show promises to set faces to grinning and toes to tapping, when a fabulous lineup of stars from the East Bay bluegrass/roots music constellation—Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands, Bluegrass Intentions, the Kathy Kallick Band, and Jim Nunally & Keith Little—converges for a super-hot jam session and celebration of the multiplicity of talent that is part of the Freight’s hometown community.

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum showcase impressive vocal talents, backed by their fabulous fiddle, mandolin, and guitar. Laurie's songwriting and crystal-clear singing have brought her a Grammy and two International Bluegrass Music Association Awards for Female Vocalist of the Year. Tom adds his own sparkling musicianship and wry humor, creating an irresistible mix.

Pooling the impressive talents of Bill Evans (banjo), Suzy Thompson (fiddle), Eric Thompson (mandolin), Alan Senauke (guitar), and Larry Cohea (bass), Bluegrass Intentions create roots-based bluegrass music that brims with ebullience and sparkles with creativity. Whether re-working material from a Library of Congress field recording, adapting a Cajun two-step, or reinventing a Flatt & Scruggs classic, these genre-bending traditionalists love making music together, and it shows!

Sparkling songwriter and vocalist, Kathy Kallick performs flat-out great bluegrass steeped in Bill Monroe-based tradition, backed by her red-hot band, featuring Tom Bekeny (mandolin, fiddle), Dan Booth (acoustic bass), Greg Booth (dobro, banjo), and Annie Staninec (fiddle). Tonight Kathy and the band perform both new songs and classics from the bluegrass and country traditions. Kathy has been leading traditional bluegrass bands on the West Coast since 1975, and her take on the classics, as well as her compelling originals, incorporates the unique perspective and refreshing musical sensibilities that won her a Lifetime Achievement Award from the California Bluegrass Association in 2001.

Longtime friends and collaborators, Keith Little and Jim Nunally are best known to bluegrass audiences for their tenure in top national bands (Ricky Skaggs, David Grisman Bluegrass Experience, Country Gentlemen, John Reischman and the Jaybirds), and performances on award-winning recordings (Dolly Parton's "Little Sparrow", and the compilation True Life Blues: The Songs Of Bill Monroe, among others).