BY ERIC VITHALANI The first time I heard Marshall Tucker’s “Fire on the Mountain” was on an airplane, 1980, I was ten years old. My fam...
BY ERIC VITHALANI
The first time I heard Marshall Tucker’s “Fire on the Mountain” was on an airplane, 1980, I was ten years old. My family flew to Europe from the U.S. for a long vacation, to visit relatives, to travel around in a VW bus for weeks on end. On the plane ride over, wearing those torture- device-like-airplane headphones, my brother helped me find a music station to listen to: a southern rock station. Over the hum of the plane's engines and the pain of my ears popping from altitude, that unforgettable chorus infused into my brain and has never left: “And there's fire on the mountain, lightning in the air / Gold in them hills and it's waiting for me there”
Forty-six years later in Wilmington, NC on May 18th and 19th, 2026, the Toy Factory Project owned the stage at Greenfield Lake Amphitheater and gave tribute to some of the greatest songs ever written: Paul T. Riddle (Drums and original Marshall Tucker member), Marcus King (Guitar/Vocals), Charlie Starr (Guitar/Vocals), Oteil Burbridge (Bass), Josh Shilling (Keys), Sam Bush (Mandolin/Fiddle), Jimmy Rector (Percussion) make up the Toy Factory, and to call this group of musicians a super group is way too easy. They are the living proof that some songs don't just get written, they get embedded, passed down like a family name, showing up in every player who came after.
I have been to a lot of shows at Greenfield Lake, and I can easily say that those two nights were among the best. Both sets opened with "Hillbilly Band" and closed with the DNA-deep essentials: "Take the Highway," "Blue Ridge Mountain Sky," "Heard It in a Love Song.”
On night two, during the stripped-down “Heard it in a Love Song,” I anchored myself in the back row for some audience and full-stage photos. Next to me, a big man, with a long gray beard who could snap me in half, leaned to his left on the rail. The rest of the audience sang every word with the band like a Sunday choir, and as the song faded into the southern night air, I looked at the big man and asked, “You good?” “That song,” he said, “That song gets me everytime.” It was so apparent that those songs were embedded in the bloodstream of everyone there for years, decades, lifetimes. I imagine passed down like a family heirloom.
Each night made room for one Grateful Dead cover, a nod to the shared spiritual lineage between the two bands; Night 1 featured a seamless segue from the MTB's "Fire on the Mountain" directly into the Dead's “Fire on the Mountain,” while Night 2 swapped in "Franklin's Tower." Both songs were sung by Otiel, as it should be.
The second night reached deeper into the catalog, pulling out "See You Later, I'm Gone" and "You Ain't Foolin' Me" for fans who came back for more, or missed out on the first night. But the most significant difference between the two nights was saved for last. Night 1 ended with "Love Song." Night 2 closed with "Can't You See,“ the song that, more than any other in Toy Caldwell's catalog, has lived rent-free in the heads of anyone who has ever heard it. And as the second night closed, we found out that Jerry Eubanks, founding member of The Marshall Tucker Band, was in the audience.
In the end, what a gift for Greenfield Lake to have those musicians playing those songs that have embedded themselves in the DNA of so many people, including myself at 10 years old, looking out of an airplane window at the fire-scorched mountain-like clouds.
- [message]
- ERIC VITHALANI
Eric Vithalani lives in Surf City, North Carolina, after many years just down the road in Wilmington. A photographer and writer, he often documents live music across the Carolinas and beyond, as well as landscape, street, surfing and skate culture along the coast. He teaches English at a community college and is a published poet. His work and curiosity have taken him traveling around the world, though he always finds his way back to the North Carolina coast.
Read Eric's posts here.
COMMENTS