Sunday, August 15, 2004
Review du Jour -- The Dead
On Friday, I fulfilled one of my longest lasting dreams -- to watch The Dead live in concert. Okay, so it wasn't the Grateful Dead, but under the circumstances, watching Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzman and Phil Lesh (alongwith Jimmy Herring, Warren Haynes and Jeff Chimenti) putting on a fabulous show is more than I could ask for. I remember back in 1995 (in Bombay) thinking to myself that I would never get a chance to watch them live when they announced their disbanding after Jerry Garcia's death.
Starting with "The Wheel" and "No More Do I" the band jammed their way through "Uncle John's Band", "Let it Grow", "Dark Star", "Slipknot", "Franklin's Tower" etc before ending the show with the best encore I've ever heard at a concert -- "We Bid You Goodnight." In between all of this, they did an awesome version of, believe it or not, Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters," the first time they've played it in concert apparently. It was quite brilliant really, if it weren't for Phil Lesh suppressing a smile while attempting to do a Philip Hetfield on vocals :)
Besides the music, other little things of note included a strategically placed John Kerry for Prez sticker on Phil's speakers, which kept showing up on the large screen every time the camera focussed on Phil, which was pretty often, as you can imagine. Right before the encore, Bob Weir finally decided to end his prolonged silence by exhorting people to register to vote saying "if only everyone who was eligible to vote in Florida had voted, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in today."
And the crowd. What a crowd! Clean cut Wall St types mixed in with reprobate hippies, little children with parents, pot-smoking teenagers etc etc and every last one of them dancing for 3.5 hours plus. There was more energy flowing through the crowd at this concert than there was even at the U2 concerts in 2001, and that's saying something. In short, everything you heard about the Grateful Dead concert experience (the jams, the dancing, the vibe, the bizarre mix of people etc) is, in fact, true. And for those of you who think Coventry this weekend marks the end of something beautiful, remember thats what I thought back in 1995 about the Dead.
Starting with "The Wheel" and "No More Do I" the band jammed their way through "Uncle John's Band", "Let it Grow", "Dark Star", "Slipknot", "Franklin's Tower" etc before ending the show with the best encore I've ever heard at a concert -- "We Bid You Goodnight." In between all of this, they did an awesome version of, believe it or not, Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters," the first time they've played it in concert apparently. It was quite brilliant really, if it weren't for Phil Lesh suppressing a smile while attempting to do a Philip Hetfield on vocals :)
Besides the music, other little things of note included a strategically placed John Kerry for Prez sticker on Phil's speakers, which kept showing up on the large screen every time the camera focussed on Phil, which was pretty often, as you can imagine. Right before the encore, Bob Weir finally decided to end his prolonged silence by exhorting people to register to vote saying "if only everyone who was eligible to vote in Florida had voted, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in today."
And the crowd. What a crowd! Clean cut Wall St types mixed in with reprobate hippies, little children with parents, pot-smoking teenagers etc etc and every last one of them dancing for 3.5 hours plus. There was more energy flowing through the crowd at this concert than there was even at the U2 concerts in 2001, and that's saying something. In short, everything you heard about the Grateful Dead concert experience (the jams, the dancing, the vibe, the bizarre mix of people etc) is, in fact, true. And for those of you who think Coventry this weekend marks the end of something beautiful, remember thats what I thought back in 1995 about the Dead.
