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The Dead's bassist Phil Lesh and guitarists Bob Weir and Warren Haynes perform on April 12 |
The latest incarnation of the good ol' Grateful Dead has produced a truly high-energy celebration of life and music.
The 2009 revival tour--now in midstream--could have been a huge mistake. After all, how could the band, now known simply as The Dead, replace its inspirational lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, who died 14 years ago?
Would the shows be just another attempted comeback by a rock band that has seen better days and lost key members to the excesses of its trade and the fame that accompanies it?
Nope. The Dead's current reunion tour opened a new chapter for the rockers. Though rooted in the psychedelic 1960s and San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, the band has transcended its origins.
My wife, Patty, and I have seen the Grateful Dead and spinoff bands numerous times since our college days. Springtime in the late 1970s, '80s and early '90s often meant catching the Dead in halls such as Hampton and Richmond coliseums, the Capital Centre and Philadelphia's Spectrum.
Times have changed, and this trip to see the band last week in Charlottesville included our music-loving sons, Will, 20, and Andy, 18.
We weren't disappointed.
The crowd was a mix of young and old. Maybe there are many Dead families.
The original members: guitarist Bob Weir, drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, and bassist Phil Lesh have teamed up with keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and guitarist Warren Haynes.
The Dead took the University of Virginia's John Paul Jones Arena by storm. Acoustically, it's an excellent venue, and I'm sure that audio technology has improved vastly since the last time I saw the band in 1991 at the Cap Centre.
The JPJ was the third stop on a 22-show tour that's headed to Philly in early May.
Haynes--who has taken the spot held previously by iconic Southern rock lead guitarists Duane Allman and Dickey Betts with The Allman Brothers Band, and leads his own band, Gov't Mule--showed his talent and breadth of musical knowledge. It's not like people are saying "Jerry who?" But Haynes brings unique energy and a style that melds well with longtime Dead members.
A student of many musical styles and genres, like Garcia, he makes it easy to understand why the band is back on the road--something many fans thought wouldn't happen after Garcia's death.
The band got the crowd of about 12,000 at the new hall on its feet and singing along by delving into the Dead's deep tracks. They opened with "New Speedway Boogie" from the 1970 "Workingman's Dead" album, then moved into "Bertha." Its signature line, "Ran into a rain storm," brought cheers from the crowd, who had waited outside on a cold, wet night while security patted down concert-goers.
The band kept the early-days theme going by performing "Mason's Children," a song dropped from the band's live repertoire in 1970, according to Dead archivists. The ballad has an appropriate link to U.Va. with its lyric about how "Mason's children bricked him in a wall," reminiscent of university dropout Edgar Allan Poe's story "A Cask of Amontillado." "Big Boss Man," "Doin' That Rag" and the newer "Standing on the Moon" rounded out the first set.
The relatively short, tight versions of the songs left some Deadheads in the audience wondering if they'd jam like the band of old. The second set didn't disappoint.
The band returned with "Playing In The Band" wrapped around an hour-plus-long jam that included "Crazy Fingers," outstanding drumming of "Rhythm Devils," followed by a way-out-there "Space" session, which gave way to a rocking "St. Stephen," "The Eleven," and "Mississippi Half-Step." Then came "Foolish Heart," a favorite of the band in the late 1980s. The encore was the garage-band favorite, Van Morrison's "Gloria." You know: G-L-O-R-I-A!
Before the end of the show, Lesh put down his new bass with stellar blue lights on the neck and took a moment to press the case for organ donation. It was a very personal story seldom heard at early Dead shows.
He said he's playing these days thanks to a donated liver. In 1997, Lesh underwent the transplant because of a recurring hepatitis infection.
He's grateful--alive.
dead.net/dead09Jim Toler: 540/374-5416
Email: jtoler@freelancestar.com
ABOUT THE TOUR The Dead's current tour, which runs through May 16, already passed through Washington, D.C., and Charlottesville. However, Deadheads willing to travel can still catch them on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J., or May 1-2 at Philadelphia's The Wachovia Spectrum. |
