Concert Reviews

[JRL]

Sista Judih said that if want more traffic we need more content, so I am starting this thread for Concert reviews and i hope everyone reviews every show they have been too, me first with a cross post from the Groove, last nights DSO celebration!

Set One:    Iko Iko ; Hell In A Bucket ; Loser ; Cassidy ; Dupree's Diamond Blues ; C C Rider ; Deal

Set Two:    I Need A Miracle > Bertha ; Playing In The Band > China Doll > Jam > Drums > Space > Playing In The Band > Black Peter > Sugar Magnolia ; One More Saturday Night
Encore:    Keep Your Day Job

Filler: Let Me Sing Your Blues Away Show from 86-6-9 Cal Expo TJ was pretty sure she was there.

We had a good time. Me, still kinda thinking it was the real band expected a long line of people waiting to get in, wanted to get there the moment the doors open. TJ being a cooler head(heads ARE cool, like our sticker, "if You're Not A Head You're Behind")
got us there about 45 minutes before the advertised time and we walked right up to will call and had our pick of seats, in the 5th row. Hall never got much more than half full.

Band hit the stage on Dead time, about 20 minutes late, immediately hit a strong groove with Aiko. First thing I noticed:Jeff Mattson is a bad ass, much stronger presence than Stu Allen.

Well I got to say, that the slight cheesiness of it all is forgotten when the band starts cooking. These guys have learned their lessons well, they breath together like the Dead, actually tighter musically and way better vocally. And the Dead have never had a keyboard player like Rob Barraco, and keys play a much bigger role. Rob is a great singer, did all of Brent's tenor parts strong and crisp. I think it's the quality of that gives it legitamcy.

The other thing is : IT WORKS!!!!! IN spite of a crowd that was a bit small to generate high energy, we did get it off the ground. I think with a couple hundred more than the 500 or so it would have been a better party, but it kept it comfortable for the old folks. And I think that is what the DSO is about. letting middle aged hippies be Dead Heads for a few days. I heard many people talking about the 2 nights before at the Regency in SF, (sample: "It sucks being 50, I am so sore from dancing)

I could feel LSD energy big time, I always get as huge contact hit in these scenes. A few people were obviously trippin, not a huge number.

But the main thing is, this is one hell of a band, really listen to each other and really hear, maybe like the Dead without hard drugs The schedule they keep(1876 shows in 12 years) is James Brown worthy, they got to be in great shape. They really look like they are having fun, and when the music turns weird they are right there ready for it. Rob Eaton the guy that does Weir, leads the band on stage just like Bobby did(people always say Gar was the leader, but from what i've seen it was Pig Pen in the old days, and Weir later, at least on stage).

They played a really long 2nd set, and I think they kinda lost the crowd with drums/space and the monster jam after it, before the playing in the band reprise. it started to feel like a yuppie Sunday night, quite a few bailed. The ones that did missed out on one real high pont, Rob Barraco doing Sing Your Blues Away. Not only is he a way better singer than Keith was, he is a way better singer than anyone ever in the Dead and offshoots, even better than Warren Haynes who is one singing white boy in my opinion. I think Rob, having been with Phil gives them a bit of street cred, at any rate he may be the most underrated musician around.

In closing let me say there is nothing like a DSO concert except a Dead show.

Come on honey let me sing em away!!

[laughingwillow]

I really like Rob B's contribution to Phil's band.

lw

[JRL]

He played his ass off last night, right before drums they had the "we don't need no stinking guitar players" segment, with Rob, the bassie and da drummers. Holy shit!!

[AliceTepes]

I recently saw Primus with a few close friends and had an amazing time. Primus has a huge stage presence and they brought an even larger sound. Really cool/trippy show. they had these huge inflated astronauts (seemingly 20 feet tall) at the back of the stage and there were strange videos projected on to their faces throughout the show. Les Claypool was crazy, he kept switching masks(between a pig and a gorilla and I think at one point george bush.) He also drew out a few of the songs which was really interesting to hear songs that are usually only 3 minutes go on for 15 or so. Later in the show he utilized a homemade instrument  he created called a Whamola. Which has a really funky and somewhat unsettling sound.


my two friends and I had not ingested any exotic substances before or during the show, but it was very clear to us the about 75% of the crowd had. There was a girl(she was maybe 24ish) tripping out pretty hard(I am assuming LSD) about 3 rows ahead of us. We were up on the balcony and I had a slight fear that she might lose it and fall off. :roll:  Fortunately she didn't, but at one point the police walked over and talked to her.




all and all I would say it was one of the top five shows I have seen in my life so far.

[JRL]

Thanks Alice. Question: how could you tell the difference between a pig, a gorilla , and george II?

[AliceTepes]

well....there are three reasons for that Number one is biological: I have better than perfect vision. Number two is neurological: as I said I was not on anything at the time. and finally number three is geographical: the balcony seats had were pretty much over the stage.

but yeah Bushy boy does sure look like both a pig and gorilla.


Pigorilla :lol:

[laughingwillow]

I just took a tour back in time, thanks to cunningP. He recently sent me copies of a bunch of shows including 2-6-89 Kaiser/Oakland CA. The copy he sent me sounds great. And its been interesting to revisit that evening, especially since I didn't make it through the entire show.  (I posted the story some years back.)

Anyway, it was the first show ever fled in terror or for any other reason. Gave away my ticket for the next night's performance and vowed never to return. The effects of that particular dose, reported to be pharm grade sandoze and contained on 1/2 of a single blotter tab were felt for at least three days. I stranded two friends at that show and needed about an hour to navigate my way out of downtown Oakland that night. The little sleep I got was under a desk in my hotel room rather than on the bed.....

I remember making my way to the back of the aud looking for space to dance and ending up in the middle of the first grateful dead mosh pit I'd ever witnessed. Things started getting sketchy for me about the time Bobby started shrieking the lyrics to Wang Dang Doodle. Interestingly enough, I found no comfort in his assurance that the wang dang doodle they were pitching was going to last all night long. So I made my way to the hallway and into the world of the spinners and that's when things really got strange. When the band hit its full stride on Cassidy experienced a psychotic break and decided to hit the street.    

Beer Barrell Polka > Not Fade Away ; Sugaree > Wang Dang Doodle ; Jack-A-Roe ; Queen Jane Approximately ; Brown Eyed Women ; Cassidy ; Tennessee Jed
Two    Hell In A Bucket > Scarlet Begonias > Looks Like Rain > Terrapin Station ; Drums > Space > The Other One > Stella Blue > Turn On Your Lovelight
Encore    Black Muddy River

So I left that space about the time Cassidy was winding down. Closed the door behind me and the band tore into a Tennessee Jed.

Cold iron shackles and a ball and chain
Listen to the whistle of the evening train
You know you bound to wind up dead
if you don't head back to Tennessee, Jed
Rich man step on my poor head
When you get up you better butter my bread
Well you know it's like I said
You better head back to Tennessee, Jed
Tennessee, Tennessee
There ain't no place I'd rather be
Baby won't you carry me
Back to Tennessee
Drink all day and rock all night
Law come to get you if you don't walk right
Got a letter this morning and all it read:
You better head back to Tennessee, Jed
I dropped four flights and cracked my spine
Honey come quick with the iodine
Catch a few winks down under the bed
Then head back to Tennessee, Jed
Tennessee, Tennessee
There ain't no place I'd rather be
Baby won't you carry me
Back to Tennessee
I ran into Charley Phogg
He blacked my eye and he kicked my dog
My dog he turned to me and he said
Let's head back to Tennessee, Jed
I woke up a feeling mean
Went down to play the slot machine
The wheels turned round and the letters read
Better head back to Tennessee, Jed
Tennessee, Tennessee
Ain't no place I'd rather be
Baby won't you carry me
Back to Tennessee.... - Hunter/Garcia

Four days later we headed down HWY 101 with Zippy in the back of my truck on our way to see the Dead at the Forum in LA. (CunningP was also kind enough to send me copies of that three show run.) Zippy had the keys to an office overlooking Sunset Strip. One day before a show, One morning Zippy let me color in the bald spots left from where he'd recently yanked the hair out of his scalp. Zippy told me he'd caught almost 500 shows by then. You might remember him as the guy Larry Flint used in the photo for his "Mervis the Pervis" spread, but that's another story for another time.

lw

[JRL]

Thanks for the tale, lw.

[AliceTepes]

I can't imagine a dead show... I bet it must have been amazing to exist in such a place with a head full of pure acid. I am happy to be where I am but, in a way I would have loved to have lived in that period as well.

[judih]

appreciative thread-viewer - that's me.
haven't been to an actual concert since Miles Davis played Caesarea Amphitheatre.

My review - up close and personal - could see the looks he gave the band members, the hold he had on what was going on.
He was brilliant, of course, dressed amazingly, of course, but the power of control is what grabbed me...

what year? way back in the eighties.

[JRL]

Seeing Miles was a real thrill. saw him in the early 70s with Pete Cosey et al, maybe his most "out" band
 And then in his comeback years in the 80s. He played Michael Jacksons Human Nature, made me cry with the pure beauty of the melody.

[laughingwillow]

I never had the fortune to catch a Miles Davis show. That must have been something else.....

I'm just heating up the tubes to listen to the run of dead shows in LA that followed the "Kaiser Incident" outlined above. hehe

For some reason, I ended up catching all three shows of that run from a hallway in the upper section of the forum. Early on, the security was enforcing a "no dance zone" between the hallway and past the arc leading into the main room of the hall. And unfortunately, the sweet spot for sound was in this no-man's land. At one point, the guards snatched a repeat offender and was immediately surrounded by ululating heads of every size, shape and gender. (I don't remember just what happened to that guy, ultimately.)

There were numerous guest appearances, including Spencer Davis and Bob Dylan. They really had the Forum rocking.

As we were walking in the third night, I ran into a friend called Monkey. She had been making the dead parking lot scene at Dead and Jerry shows for almost a year without ever getting into a show. But that night in LA was different. Monkey had scored a ticket and was excited as hell. Needless to say, it really fried my noodle a bit later when the Dead pulled out "The Monkey and the Engineer," at a live gig for only the second or third time EVER.

And sometime during that third show, security relented and we were finally allowed to enjoy that space to its fullest without worry of getting hauled away by da heat.

Don't get me wrong, security wasn't always bad. At least not in NoCal. An old dude named Willy was an institution at all "BIll Graham Presents," shows in the bay area during the years I was following the band. And then one day I watched one of the dead movies and spotted a young Willy herding the crowd way back then in prolly the early 70's. I did have the opportunity to sit down and chat with Willy on a couple of occasions. But what I remember most was the way that he quietly talked into his megaphone, giving instructions to the tripping hippies on our way into the venues. He had a little schmeel that would just roll off of his tongue and envelop passers-by without hitting folks with volume. Old Willy had a way. "Have your tickets ready, single file, now.... Everyone gets in. No hurry or worry. Just line up and keep moving toward the doors...)

But enough with the security guard talk. Tubes should be warm by now. One day I might have to tell a funny story about security at a dead show, but I won't be getting to that run of shows, also sent by cunningP, for a few days, prolly....

lw

[JRL]

First time I saw Miles there were maybe 600 people in a 3300 seat hall. The music he was playing at the time was anything
but accessible, but for my friends and I the more out the better. We were musical explorers in our own small way.

I saw a lot of shows back then, lots good free stuff at the colleges, plus forays into SF to go to Keystone Korner the great jazz club in North Beach/Telegraph Hill. Saw Ornette Coleman with his first electric band, Grant Green, Airto and Flora and the amazingly great McCoy Tyner. Nice thing about Keystone the musicians were accessible. I talked to Grant Green, his keyboard player and my friend brought Airto a gong stand he had made. We went on stage and talked to him. I saw Elvin Jones, Cal Tjader, Gabor Zabo, Willie Dixon, Les McCann, Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thorton, Cannonball Adderly and many more.

I was just a kid, hungry for music of substance looking outside of my own white suburban culture for whatever was real. Little did I know that I was getting an education for everything I have done since, or maybe it was done with that intention.

[laughingwillow]

JRL: Sounds like you were lucky to grow up where and when you did. But you also had that spark of consciousness that made you dig your way out of that loaf of Wonder Bread at a pretty early age.

I grew up insulated. "Alternative" music for me, was the rock and roll an uncle brought back north with him from a stint spent in the military in the deep south. My parents were into country and i remember a bunch of "Mommas and the Papas" albums at home.

When I was a kid, I pretty much just wanted to fit in...

Fast forward to new year's eve 88/89 in Oakland. That particular night is one of the Dead's most difficult tickets to score. Everyone wants in to see the festivities. What will Bill Graham do THIS year?

Anyway, the place was a mad house even before the show got started. Lots-o hippies with sparkly eyes. A little drum jam started up in a hallway. A set of congas were brought in and the crowd surrounding the jam started to grow. The drummers had their backs to the glass walls of the indoor coliseum and there was a security guard posted at a nearby door. Pretty soon, the scene engulfed the security man. He was a clean-cut, younger black guy wearing sunglasses and a scowl. The musical tension grew; minds met. And then I watched as the door cracked open a bit and a bunch of hippies without tickets crouched and squeezed their way through the opening and then were engulfed by the writhing mass of revelers. The door closed and a collective cheer went up from the folks in the crowd who had witnessed the entry facilitated by the guard. After that the rhythms really built to a frenzy. I remember seeing the guard getting passed a joint, and watching him puff on it madly before passing it on. Right then, the expression changed on his face, from a perma-scowl to the sort of goofy grin that can really only occur when a person let's their guard down. There was a distinct change of energy that went down while watching our new security-hero get stoned with the family after doing the good deed; the guy had our back and we had his. He was there for OUR security and we loved him for showing us that side, while on duty.  

ANd the show had yet to begin.....

lw

[judih]

comfort Zone!