Review by Dave Gardiner
Photos by Stanley Johnson
During this summer’s 50th anniversary of Woodstock, I am reminded that for me the Grateful Dead did not exist in the 60s. I can’t recall anyone that I knew being aware of the band, even though Janis Joplin, the Jefferson Airplane, and other San Francisco-based musicians were showing up on our radar. Many of the artists who played Woodstock were gaining fame in 1970 from the soundtrack album, like Country Joe and the Fish, Santana and Ten Years After. The Grateful Dead, however, escaped many of us on the east coast probably because they weren’t in the Woodstock movie or album. This was largely due to the Dead’s set — by many accounts uneventful and fraught with issues.
After Woodstock, when I was 14, a friend of mine returned from New York City with a handful of records. After school, a few of us gathered to listen. Among the LPs I heard was the Grateful Dead’s seminal Workingman’s Dead. I was intrigued by the cover and when the needle hit the vinyl that was pretty much when I became a Grateful Dead fan. Fast forward to almost 50 years later, and the folks and I at SPAC were treated to three selections from Workingman’s Dead by Dead & Company. One of those was “Cumberland Blues,” brought out during the first set with an intro that just cooked. I was really taken with the vocals. The harmonies and arrangements were perfect and on-key.
They also played “Uncle John’s Band,” which I never heard live at the numerous Grateful Dead shows I attended in the 70s. It wasn’t until the band’s 15th anniversary tour in 1980, when I went to both the June 7 and 8 shows at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado, that I heard first heard “Uncle John’s Band” live. Truly a memorable moment. In Boulder, they also played “Feel Like A Stranger” from the then-new Go To Heaven album. Tonight, Dead & Company opened with that one at SPAC, and it sounded fresh and crisp.
The six-piece group approached all the material with care and precision. Bob Weir continues the legacy with his signature vocals and angular guitar work. John Mayer nailed his parts and played so fluidly that when he and the band covered “Alabama Getaway,” I came to accept his voice and guitar in place of the Jerry Garcia parts.
Like many of Grateful Dead fans, the grieving for Garcia has been a tough one. I’ve always felt fortunate that in my first 25 years as a fan, I witnessed a lot of magic from Captain Trips. Sadly, around the time of my final Grateful Dead concert at the Los Angeles Sports Arena in 1994, there was potential tragedy looming. That may be why, 25 years later, this concert on a beautiful night in Saratoga Springs was so special. If you take Jerry Garcia out of the equation, you actually still have quite a bit left. For one, there’s the Deadheads, a true phenomenon — I don’t use that word loosely. Tonight, I was delighted to be part of one of the best crowds in years. I saw a sea of tie-die shirts, hundreds of Dead concert shirts, and hundreds of Aloha shirts. The girls were lovely in their floral print dresses and skirts. None of the garments were the same.
We were all part of a community that spans four generations — from babies and children frolicking on the SPAC lawn, to Dead show veterans like me. I’m old but I spotted seniors who could be my parents, too. The bottom line is everyone looked happy and had fun. When that happens, age, backgrounds, ethnicities, political beliefs — they don’t matter. It’s all about the music.
Grateful Dead drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, who brought much more than drums to the show, were there with Allman Brothers Band bassist Oteil Burbridge, manning the engine room. Weir’s long-time Ratdog keyboardist Jeff Chimenti rounds out the lineup. He is so well rehearsed with these tunes that he lends a level of professionalism that puts him up there with anyone else on that stage.
Other first set highlights included John Mayer carrying the lead on a beautiful rendition of “It Must Have Been The Roses,” set at a perfect slow pace by the skilled drum team of Kreutzmann and Hart. They played “Cassidy,” originally found on Weir’s first solo album Ace, which all the members of the Grateful Dead played on. We also got a pristine “Hell In A Bucket,” the band’s only visit to material from the late 80s. For the last number of the set, everyone danced to the familiar “U.S. Blues,” with Weir taking a crack at the vocals. Accompanying the music was a visual display of graphics and video imagery to create a state-of-the-art light show. Back in the day, there was very little of this kind of visual accompaniment beyond basic lighting. When I saw the Grateful Dead in 1973 at Summer Jam at Watkins Glen on a bill that included the Allman Brother Band and The Band, plus 600,000 fans, it was a daytime show without lighting.
The second set at SPAC would stretch out, starting with “Here Comes Sunshine” from Wake Of The Flood. The tone on Mayer’s guitar was like he was channeling Jerry Garcia. The extended jam was a delight and the crowd-pleasing “Shakedown Street” had Dead and Company delivering a version way different and very cool. I’ve been singing “I just gotta poke, poke, poke” ever since.
The meat and potatoes of any Dead show is when one song drifts into another, a practice the Dead started back in the 60s. Tonight, the “Wharf Rat” and “Playing In the Band” combo platter really got the crowd in a dancing mood. Burbridge then joined the drummers for the anticipated “Drums/Space” segment. I knew this would be good but it exceeded my expectations. The three musicians played skillfully and rhythmically. During “Space,” Hart played a thick-stringed device with a bow, taking the music out there. The audience seemed to understand the process. As the others returned to the stage, they got caught up into further “Space.” I got pulled into Chimenti’s jazzy keyboard work.
They went on to play “Viola Lee Blues” from the first Grateful Dead album, and the slightly more famous “Casey Jones,” which had the audience swinging and swaying. An encore of Wilson Pickett’s In The Midnight Hour,” which the Dead did regularly in the early days with Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan out front, got the Booker T and the MGs treatment. That stretched out into a reprise of “Playing In the Band” to end the night.
I was so impressed with this show that I felt a renewed faith that a lot of the magic from the early shows is continuing. As long as Bob Weir wants to sing Bob Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” like he did in the first set, or John Lennon’s “Dear Prudence,” respectfully arranged to match the Jerry Garcia Band version, I will continue to make pilgrimages to more Dead & Company shows to celebrate the music of the Grateful Dead.
