Sunday, August 5, 2007

Bobby Rock Star 70's Style; or Bobby Fans Are People Too!


After the game tonight, twas time again to let my finger Press Play for some of those sweetest sounds... sweetest to me anyway. Almost no better way to end my day that's what I say. Not the Dead but how about a little something similar...

Bob Weir Band 3/8/78

The Palladium
New York City


Late Show
Poison Ivy, C.C. Rider, Easy To Slip,
Salt Lake City, Bombs Away,
I Found Love, It's All Over Now,
This Time Forever Shade Of Grey,
Lazy Lightning Supplication,
Heaven Help The Fool, Around And Around

Encore
I'll Be Doggone Wrong Way Feelin'

Pretty fun show! Rock Star wannabe Bobby Weir gets his chance to shine as the leader of the band. And without that pesky limelight stealer Jerry Garcia, shine he does!

A couple months before, Heaven Help The Fool went on sale, Weir's first solo album (without any members of the Dead.) Now here he is in-between Dead tours, doing shows to support the recent release. His bandmates all are guys who weren't even on the album. There is chemistry, though, that's clearly evident! Surely they had some rehearsals probably back in Marin and now about ten nights into the tour, they're smokin'! Bobby Cochran is fantastic on guitar, really makes Jerry sound like just a wee little guitar student who'll never have any success. (Ha, I kid ya Jer, I know you read my reviews!) Anyway, Cochran's not really being Jerry here, he's being himself, the lead guitar player for this band for these songs, almost all of which come from the two month old album. If anyone didn't go out and buy that album before the show, while they may like the tunes they're hearing being played, they've no idea what most of 'em even are!
A whole bunch of songs that the crowd was screaming out, like Greatest Story Ever Told, Mexicali Blues and Minglewood Blues, never did get played but numbers like C.C. Rider, while a known tune, hadn't yet made its way into the Dead's repetoire and It's All Over Now and Around and Around have each been Dead played before and on this night they sounded just as cool. Lazy Lightning was awesome and definitely the highlight! Most tunes were played as dead ahead (pun semi-intended) rock and roll. There wasn't much jamming, only on a few songs and never all spacey, long and drawn out.

One of the most interesting aspects of this tour (to me, at least) is some dude named Brent Mydland on keys and organ. I didn't even know he had a spotlight as part of the extended GD family a whole year and a month before his first show as a full-fledged card-holding member of the Dead. No singing but he played nicely and/or helped kick butt on a whole bunch of songs; really a neat glimpse of the future. Interesting, too, to hear a bunch of tunes that are in the Ratdog catalog today but here they're played in their infancy way back when. Overall a darn fun show that I would super suggest to any Deadhead Bob Weir fan!!!


from sugarmegs.org
Listen Here
or, in one long .wma file

(this post was before I did mp3. links are dead, sorry.)



3 comments:

Deadman said...

Bob Weir Band or Kingfish??

BTW, just snagged tix to see Phil and F at the Greek on September 23...

Zoooma said...

Since the old man's continueing to pretend Alaska doesn't exist, and there's no show in Vancouver 2,300 miles away, I might plan to get down South Carolina where my dad lives and head over to see P&F in Hotlanta if I can get a ticket ahead of time... lookin' like my only option.

And yeah, Bob Weir Band was the Weir's first solo band between Kingfish in '76 (which wasn't even really truly his band) and Bobby & The Midnites in 80 or 81 (which is essentially the Bob Weir Band with a member change or two.)

Nazz Nomad said...

poison ivy!!!!!!!!!!!

one says one number and the other another
but they were set at the same time. Hmmm...

i love you amy uzarski.  always!
 
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