Today I kinda messed up by not going on a hike. Not truly messed up but I should have hit the trail. Sunday is often a day for church, a day for football, a day for hiking... but it wasn't imperative that I go. Woulda been a fan-freakin'-tastic way to burn some calories, that's for sure. But hey, another way to burn calories: dance, baby, dance! Seriously. Get up outta that chair yer sittin' in, put on one seriously delicious nugget of a show and just dance. Know what I'm sayin'? Well, do ya??!? I don't think yer hearin' me -- DANCE!!!!!!!!!!
"The Dead" -- 2/14/03The Warfield, San Francisco(Robert Hunter opened)
The BandPhil, Bobby, Mickey, Billy,Jimmy Herring - guitarJeff Chimenti & Rob Barraco - keyboards1st Settuning/Jam -> Hell In A Bucket -> Iko Iko,Lazy Lightning -> Supplication -> Lazy Lightning,Loose Lucy#, Hard To Handle²³, Casey Jones²³,Cumberland Bluesª -> Sugaree³2nd SetA Love Supreme Jam -> Looks Like Rain ->Sittin' On Top Of The Worldª -> Spaceª ->Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds³, Born Cross-Eyed ->Jam -> Help On The Way -> Slipknot -> Jam,Turn On Your Lovelight²³ª-> Slipknot²³ª-> Franklin's Tower²³ªEncoreGoin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad³ -> Not Fade Away²³ª² with Joan Osborne; ³ with Warren Haynes;# with Sammy Hagar; ª with Michael Kang+
Right from the start this is a hoppin' and jammin' show! The Jam-> Bucket-> Iko is over 18 minutes long and just so wonderfully retro, almost, harkening back to the good ol' Grateful Dead, but this time with Mickey covering vocals on Iko. He has a fun time with it, too. Cool as that opening was, holy cow, Joe, let me tell ya, that was just the tip of the iceberg!
After rollin' through Lazy Lightning -> Supplication, twas time for a little Van Halen flavor, kinda, sorta, courtesy of Mr. Sammy Hagar. "A good friend of mine, a guy who needs no introduction so he gets none," Bobby says jokingly. Could there seriously have been anyone in the house who really needed to be told who that was walkin' on stage?! And what song would this guy be joining in on? Loose Lucy? With Sammy on vocals? I bow down to Jerry, okay, but this was just plain freakin' sweeeeeet!!! Did Jerry & Sammy know each other? No clue have I but this is fun tribute! He does it justice and then some! Afterwards Phil says to the crowd: "Everybody say, 'Thank You, Sammmyyy!!!!'" with Bobby quickly adding, "Everybody say, "There goes the neighborhood." Ahh, great music, good laughs, very cool and the grin splashed wide across my face as it comes to a close again right now can attest to my pleasure so far.
Two more guests on the next tune and what an intro this song gets... it could just about get its own Jam label but soon enough they're kickin' into Hard To Handle. Mmmm, Joan and Warren playing off each other... with all due respect to Pigpen, this is amazing and I bet Pig watchin' down just nodded and grooved in agreement at how awesome this sounded. 15 minutes ooozing with bluesy groove to melt the mind... I'm on my 4th listen in a few days and good God, it only gets better with each listen!
Casey Jones with Joan on lead vocals was interesting yet very standard GD-sounding. The next song, though... for me it's probably the #1 highlight of Set 1. Yes, I know this isn't the Grateful Dead but why couldn't they do Cumberland like this? At nearly 18 minutes long, this has the best jam of the night so far, hands down. Again, it ventures off and away from Cumberland altogether, enough to almost be called Cumberland-> Jam-> Cumberland. Bobby finally pulls everybody back to finish it up... but then off they go again into another mini-journey before truly heading into the final song of the first set -- Sugaree. Beautiful.
That could have been a short one-set show, an hour and thirty three minutes worth of music, and I woulda been one happy camper, I tell ya what! Ain't done yet -- still a set to go!
Valentine's Day this is? More like Halloween, in a way, 'cause what comes next is one of the best treats these dancin' kids could ask for. A week before this show, Bobby busted out Born-Cross Eyed with Ratdog -- first time in just shy of 35 years. (To this day, that remains the only time he's ever played it with RD.) Now it's making it's second appearance here with these guys. Way too short but oh so cool and then the jam was on again diving into Help-> Slip-> Frank? Nah, that would be way too pedestrian for a night like this... more like: Help-> Slip-> Jam-> Lovelight-> Slip-> Frank. Yeah, that's the stuff!! Excuse me while I get up and dance for awhile!!!
Mmmm, as they explore the outermost boundaries of Slipknot and leave it behind, a nice mild Jam ensues, slowing down to a pace where the surely sweaty Warfield faithful can catch their breath for a moment or two. My only complaint of the night comes here where the Jam essentially comes to a halt before Lovelight starts up -- no smooth transition from one to another. Ahh, well, the pause was brief enough to allow some to consider it a Jam-> Lovelight but no matter how it's typed up, soon it's time to dance again. Enter both Joan and Warren again to give Bobby a break while they each take vocal control of this one, spinning it a little differently than normal. While nothing can ever reach the monumental heights of Pigpen, Warren helps this along in great fashion before an abrupt left turn at the end brings on a whole 15 seconds of Slipknot before good ol' Franklin's Tower to end the set. Just a great finish. I can barely imagine bein' there, one of the blissed out 2,000 or so inside the Warfield, one of the lucky few who got to see this show. Not over yet, though! Just a quick encore, and then.... finally out the door.
Quick encore? Ha. Almost nothing was done quickly on this night. GDTRFB-> NFA goes on for nearly 20 minutes strong... and then the night was over. At just over three hours, this was a monster of a show. A cool night in San Francisco it probably was as the crowd exited the theater and strolled out onto Market Street, a scene done so many times before after a Jerry Garcia Band show, or after all those nights of the Dead back in the early 80's. After a show like this, Jerry would smile for what those guys did up there. Pure heaven and nothing less.
"Our love is real, Not Fade Away!"
Sound Quality: Digital Soundboard
A+ might be a bit conservative...
truly this might be more like A++++
