If you’ve known me long enough, you know that I saw a lot of Grateful Dead shows back in the day. I suspect my last show was somewhere between ‘92 and ‘94. Jerry died in ‘95. The last show I can specifically remember was Pittsburgh in July ‘90, just days before the death of Brent Mydland, another tragic episode in the Dead’s karmic-like repetition of the exploding keyboardist phenomena. Interestingly, this phenomena seems to extend to Dead cover bands as well, as the Dark Star Orchestra lost a keyboardist as well.
Earlier this week, I was fortunate to be among the 15,000 in attendance at the sold-out Change Rocks concert in State College, PA, a benefit for Barack Obama starring the remaining members of the Grateful Dead and the Allman Bros. Being a decade and a half since I had seen the boys, I was very excited, but went with more questions than expectations. Would it feel more like a Phil & Friends show? A RatDog show? Or something different entirely? I brought my office-mate, Brian, who had seen the Allmans a number of times and is a big jam band fan, especially Umphrey’s McGee, but had never seen the Dead. His neighbor told him that without Jerry, it wouldn’t be a Dead show. Bobby, Phil, Mickey and Billy, along with Warren Haynes on guitar and Jeff Chimenti on keys, proved the neighbor wrong, and I told him after the show to go home and tell his neighbor he most certainly experienced a Dead show.
As the following set list, linked to a taper’s recording of the show, will testify.
01 Obama Speech Video
02 Truckin
03 U.S. Blues
04 Help On The Way -> Slipknot
05 Franklin’s Tower
06 Playin in the Band
07 Dark Star
08 St. Stephen
09 Unbroken Chain
10 The Other One
11 Throwin Stones
12 Jam
13 Playin in the Band reprise
14 Phil & Bob Rap
15 Touch of Grey
16 Not Fade Away
The feel of the show was kind of a long second set, with some fantastic jams and much shorter and tighter transitions than fans might be used to. Some fans claim this is the result of the lack of Jerry to gently lead, but I’m starting to wonder if it was purposeful, to fit as much raw music as possible into the already busy event.
