Guster hosted their annual On the Ocean event in Portland, ME, this past weekend. The festivities kicked off at the ornate Merrill Auditorium on Friday, with Guster performing alongside the Portland Symphony Orchestra. At one point, before busting into the always charged “The Elevator,” which discusses the impactful point in a person’s life when they are taking care of both their aging parents and children, frontman Ryan Miller got emotional while admitting that he dropped off his oldest child at college that very morning. The band also ended the show, as they often do, by performing a stripped-down version of “Jesus on the Radio,” with members of the symphony joining them for the banjo-enhanced tune.
On Saturday, the festivities moved over to Portland, ME’s Thompson's Point, with Iron & Wine, The Barr Brothers, Bebe Stockwell and Cilla Bonnie supplying support duties. In addition, touring Guster drummer/keyboardist Dave Butler put together one of the “and friends” shows he often stages during his Monday night residency at Hopewell, NJ’s Hopewell Fare, with the members of Guster sitting in with him at various points during the segment.
During their headlining spot, Guster offered a career-spanning set, with Miller adlibbing a song about their recent trip to Alaska; the group performed in the state for the first time in July, making them the rare act to have played all 50 states. Adding to the theatrics, on Saturday, Miller crowd-surfed into the audience to sing while on a pool floaty. Besides key tracks from each of their nine albums, Guster also offered “Lost at Sea,” a B-side off 2010’s Easy Wonderful that they only debuted in 2024, and the rarely performed 1996 Goldfly tune “Great Escape,” which they revived earlier this year for the first time since 2023. Stockwell and The Barr Brothers guitarist Brad Barr also joined Guster on stage for a tender take on Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon,” which the evening’s hosts hadn’t covered in two years. Though Barr’s group The Slip came off age in the same Wetlands scene as Guster in the ’90s, and they share many musical acquaintances, last night was the first time the two acts collaborated in a former setting.
For the final day of On the Ocean, Guster returned to Thompson’s Point, this time with Watchhouse, Neal Francis, Eggy and Khatumu supplying support duties. The members of Guster made the most of their time on site, hosting a live Q & A and stagging a pop-up show in an outdoor space at the adjacent Children's Museum & Theatre of Maine, where they performed both Violent Femmes’ classic “Blister in the Sun” and their own “This Could All Be Yours.” Guster drummer Brian Rosenworcel also led a special percussive sound bath earlier the day.
As advertised in advance, Guster celebrated the 20th anniversary of their landmark 2006 record, Ganging Up On the Sun—which found them digging into their indie-rock influences and produced their biggest hit, “Satellite”—in its entirety for the first time. The group opened with a short set of material written both before and after that LP’s release and then, after playing the album, the musicians debuted one of its outtakes, the catchy “Emory Ivy,” which first surfaced when an expanded version of Ganging Up On the Sun was released in 2021. To help the band through the wordy tune, which was famously cut from the record, in part, because it contained so many versus, Guster had an intern write the lyrics on oversized posterboards which were humorously held on stage as they ran through the number.
Guster will perform at South Deerfield, MA’s Summer Stage at Tree House Brewing Company this evening. Toth will provide support duties.
