Coming out of the Midwest, specifically, Chicago, in the mid-'90s, Umphrey's McGee is a hard-edged jam band. Their music is referred to as ''progressive improvisation.'' They moved toward the Frank Zappa side of the rock scale than the Grateful Dead direction taken by many of their contemporaries.
The members of the band met at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN. They had been playing in various campus bands by the time they got together in 1998. The band had six members and named themselves after the second cousin of the bandleader and guitarist Brendan Bayliss. The band quickly began performing high power live shows and soon released their debut album, Greatest Hits, Vol. 3. They were a fourth-generation jam band who often included songs by Phish and other similar bands. They are much more influenced by progressive rock bands as King Crimson, Dream Theater, Yes and Genesis and heavy metal bands such as Iron Maiden.
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