HE's Gone Jam>Cryptical>Other One>Stranger Bird Song Lazy Lightning>Supplication Aiko Estimated>Casey Jones

August 4, 2002 2:04 AM

HE's Gone Jam>Cryptical>Other One>Stranger Bird Song Lazy Lightning>Supplication Aiko Estimated>Casey Jones Do you know what that means? A very nice, suprisingy rockin' good concert. What did you think of the Terrapin Station 'reunion/tribute' show? Does anyone care (besides me; be gentle) ?? Rolling Stone sure doesn't care about it...deadheads are not a good demo anymore.
posted by msacheson (34 comments total)

HE's Gone Jam>Cryptical>Other One>Stranger Bird Song Lazy Lightning>Supplication Aiko Estimated>Casey Jones

...and that was just the first set. Second:

Music Baba China>Rider Dew DS>Born Cross-eyed>DS>Cryptical Saturday Night

Encore: Help>Slip>Frank
posted by msacheson at 2:09 AM on August 4, 2002

"deadheads are not a good demo anymore."

When were they?
posted by adamgreenfield at 2:19 AM on August 4, 2002

From this article: " Clear Channel Entertainment, along with Grateful Dead Productions, issued warnings that anyone showing up without a ticket could be arrested."

I'm not a Dead fan, so I haven't been following this, but is there any way they could have done the tour without going through Clear Channel? Is this what the nation has come to?
posted by gluechunk at 2:23 AM on August 4, 2002

But have they learnt to play in tune yet? (Returning to the earlier discussion of this list).
posted by kerplunk at 3:01 AM on August 4, 2002

They stopped playing out of tune in 1972, so that's kind of an old, worn-out joke. If you know anything about the band, the setlist is interesting. On the other hand, even most of the faithful wish these guys would retire already and have some dignity. Their publicity photos are downright frightening.
posted by xowie at 3:32 AM on August 4, 2002

Alpine Valley Music center is owned by Clear Channel Entertainment, so the answer to "Could they play at Alpine without going through Clear Channel?" is, simply, no.
posted by kurtosis at 8:32 AM on August 4, 2002

my first post! i can finally say, "i AM metafilter's bitch" in public!

phil lesh and friends (new studio album - there and back again) is a fresh take on the dead heritage and much more potent than the 'dead tribute band'. wier's presence dilutes the supersized instrumental improvisation phil's current touring band provides.
posted by aiq at 9:19 AM on August 4, 2002

The arrests would not have been at the behest of Clear Channel, no matter how evil and corporate they may be. The local community put severe restrictions [more stories] on the concert. Neighbors worry about gridlock with every major concert, but with the "weekend festival" aura of the Dead, they were also worried about drugs, trespassing, illegal camping, vandalism, and what have you. The promoters were required to hire extra security, tow trucks for vehicles, a medevac chopper on call, etc. -- far beyond normal arrangements. I've been to a couple of 50,000-person events there and that was bad enough.
posted by dhartung at 9:34 AM on August 4, 2002

i'm not particularly psychotic about the dead, but i'll admit, that second set sounds pretty nice--especially the cross-eyed.

guess i gotta hop over to furthur net and snag a copy.

this, however, is what really keeps me from enjoying the dead (from the first link):

"last Stranger> Bird Song: 7/4/81; last Estimated> Casey Jones: never."
posted by one.louder.ash! at 9:38 AM on August 4, 2002

Nice first post aiq.

Sad note: the kind streams on this page are suspended until after the show. Another Clear Channel conspiracy!
posted by xowie at 9:59 AM on August 4, 2002

"Their publicity photos are downright frightening."

But what band -- or person, for that matter -- from the era isn't? Keef's a ghoulish animatronic, Bob -- God bless 'im -- looks more and more like a perverted Col. Sanders every day, and let's not even mention what a pathetic, shaking hulk Ozzy has turned into...

What differentiates the Dead from many of the bands/multinational corporate ventures who are still playing is that their music and appeal was never based on sexy good looks or youthful rebellion. So it's not embarassing like when billionaire/knight of the realm Mick Jagger comes out and tries to convince us brown sugar tastes so good, just like a black girl should...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:30 AM on August 4, 2002

*clears throat and prepares to launch into screed lambasting the Dead, their zombie minions, VW buses, yuppie neohippies, obsessive tapers, and boring jam bands in general*

Nah. I'll just go turn the Ramones up a little.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:37 AM on August 4, 2002

I saw the first Other Ones tour after Jerry died, and it was a profoundly depressing experience. You could almost hear the missing notes, but it just emphasized the cruel hole in the sound. Phil especially has done a lot since to fix that problem (I much appreciated Steve Kimock's contributions), but for me, newer bands like STS 9 or Trey provide less unencumbered explorations and fresher sounds than the Un-Dead (and Warren Haynes gets me down). The nostalgia, nay melancholy, throttles a lot of the joy for me.

That said, I still would love to be at Alpine today, especially since it's my birthday. I'm dragging my zombie ass downtown to see the Zen Tricksters instead.
posted by muckster at 10:57 AM on August 4, 2002

*gears up to rant about two chord banality, every song being, "I wanna" something, or "I don't wanna" something, short attention span no-soloing morons, and improvization-lacking bands in general*

But, I like the Ramones too.
posted by aiq at 10:59 AM on August 4, 2002

But what band -- or person, for that matter
Jorma.
posted by xowie at 11:02 AM on August 4, 2002

Deadheads? Ramones? Clear Channel? LOL! You guys might as well be speaking middle english. "Aye milady, Lord Jerry Garcia be quite the raucous lad I do dare say, whether 'tis nobler a spirit living or dead." Whatever.

Eden Automatic just got drummer Scott Miles to hop on board their party train. He had been working with Courtney Fairchild and Secret Silo before that. Scott's a minimalist drummer, meaning he does more with less, and doesn't need twelve vans to carry all of his crap in. The boys at Four Side Circle are blazing a trail though honestly Antonio really should put some clothes on, and Jibe's lead singer Joe Grah is into bodysurfing his own audiences.

Deadheads? That's so twentieth century.
posted by ZachsMind at 11:32 AM on August 4, 2002

I saw the first Other Ones tour after Jerry died, and it was a profoundly depressing experience. You could almost hear the missing notes, but it just emphasized the cruel hole in the sound.

I saw RatDog in Austin a few years back. Got totally excited for the first 3 songs. Dancing, having a great time, I was back home again. Then it was time for a Jerry song and there were none. Really kinda bummed me out.
posted by ehintz at 12:10 PM on August 4, 2002

The 1998 further tour was depressing if you went hoping for continuance.

However, the same tour, approached as a form of closure, was a great way (for me, anyways) to wrap it all up (and get one last incomparable whiff of that wonderful smell of a dead show parking lot: BBQ,Kindbud, NO2 and Patchouli...)
posted by BentPenguin at 12:35 PM on August 4, 2002

By the way, was out in Eagle, Wisconsin yesterday (not far from the Dead show). A buddy and I were returning from shooting assault rifles out in the boonies when we came across a hitchhiking Deadhead on a back road. Gave him a lift and even got some hash as a thank you.

Ahhhh,

AMERICA...
posted by sharksandwich at 12:51 PM on August 4, 2002

good call on the "olde english." to hit deadheads over the head with ramones-purism is ludicrous by now. the ramones rawk, but nostalgia is nostalgia. ever listen to "acid eaters"? i saw television last week and i'm going to see camper van beethoven at the end of this month and i am totally aware that these are exercises in nostalgia. as is my listening to the minutement, etc.

newest listen: stew and the negro problem
posted by xian at 12:57 PM on August 4, 2002

The music never stops.

And hopefully that's (the odorless) N20 you're not smelling, not NO2 aka smog.
posted by euphorb at 1:26 PM on August 4, 2002

is improvisation nostalgic? my "new" band is derek trucks band. discuss amongst yourself, is dTb new or nostalgic?
posted by aiq at 3:28 PM on August 4, 2002

Ain't this the sorta thread jonmc used to comment in...
posted by dash_slot- at 4:01 PM on August 4, 2002

Mean people buck. All music is good. Smile.
posted by xowie at 4:20 PM on August 4, 2002

I had enough nostalgia when The Brady Bunch starred Shelly Long.
posted by ZachsMind at 4:35 PM on August 4, 2002

Ain't this the sorta thread jonmc used to comment in...

Well, kinda Senor Slot, but I was never a what you would call a hugeDeadhead, although I do like some of their stuff("Box of Rain" "St Stephen" "Scarlet Begonias"). The Dead may be the ultimate case of a band's fans being their worst enemy, in that a lot of 'heads(by no means all) would accept any slop the Dead dished out, which kinda tended to stifle ambition or tampering with the formula.

Also, as talented as the other band members were, it was the now deceased Messrs. Garcia and McKernan who were the distinctive voices in the group, and without them you're left with a better-than-average jam band.

And let me go a step further. In a lot of ways the Dead functioned(for many of their fans, not themselves) as more of an all-purpose symbol of Haight-Ashbury and the sixties rather than simply as a musical unit. Now first of all, the three most influential, and IMHO best Bay Area bands of that era--Santana, CCR, Sly and The Family Stone--were not exactly hugely popular among the love-in set.

And even if were sticking to the lava-lamp and love-beads set there are better representatives. Jefferson Airplane, at their peak, were a far better outfit than the Dead, mainly due to Marty Balin's songwriting and Grace Slick's vocals, two areas in which Jerry and the boys were kinda weak. The difference is that while the Airplane became the depressing joke called Starship, the Dead managed to remain more or less intact, insuring that they became the symbolic band of the era.

Now mind you, I'm not knocking the Dead or their fans, most Deadheads I've met are great folks and usually had the best weed. Plus the Dead's catalog of covers introduced countless fans to the works of Cannon's Jug Stompers, Merle Haggard, and Bobby Bland. I'll even cop to dragging out my copy of Workingmans Dead every now and again. I'm just trying to introduce the perspective that by the 1990's the Dead were more of a cultural totem than a band.
posted by jonmc at 5:14 PM on August 4, 2002

With all due respect, jonmc, that perspective is not particularly fresh-- it's essentially the mainstream media's take on the band: "sixties hippie icons etc etc." I think what people are missing in all the cultural detritus is the music itself. Workingman's Dead is a fine album, but there are scores of shows from the 1990s alone that I'd much rather listen to.

You make it sound like all the Dead did was stick it out, when really, 1991 ranks as one of their best years, and (although slop became more frequent) every year after it still yielded a wealth of great music, including shows with Branford Marsalis, Ornette Coleman, Gary Duncan, David Murray, and Ken Kesey. Forget about the tie-dyes, the lava lamps, the Haight-this and Ashbury-that, and just listen. If you're interested, drop me a line and I'll bring some discs to the nyc meetup.

In other news, official band historian Dennis McNally's history of the band is coming out on Tuesday.
posted by muckster at 11:06 PM on August 4, 2002

HE's Gone Jam>Cryptical>Other One>Stranger Bird Song Lazy Lightning>Supplication Aiko Estimated>Casey Jones Do you know what that means?

yes, i do know what that means. and i sometimes feel embarrassed about my love of the dead; they can be such an easy target for bitter cynical sneering hipsters (a group for which i must admit some affinity), but... do you know what?

the dead played fucking great american music. they introduced me to so much bluegrass, classic country, blues, etc. that i might not have discovered otherwise (though i could have done without some of bobby's 'cowboy songs'). the dead span generations, regional prejudices, and musical genres. they are great and cheesy at once, much like walt whitman or carl sandburg.

now, if you'll excuse me, i'm going to put 'reckoning' on the old cd player while i dig around for that box of tapes i know is somewhere around here...
posted by mlang at 6:35 AM on August 5, 2002

New Dead Lineup Retains Old Feeling: Remaining Grateful Dead Members Perform As The Other Ones, a Cover Band of the Highest Order
posted by muckster at 8:40 AM on August 5, 2002

Cultural phenomenon aside, the Dead turned out some of the most beautiful and intense soundscapes ever created in a live music environment. Of course I've always been of the opinion that those who went to Dead shows without a headful of acid were really missing the point.

I wish I had known that the shows hadn't been cancelled...
posted by Windopaene at 10:43 AM on August 5, 2002

On a tangential note, I was given this Garcia and Grisman gem recently--examples of which are up here for a day or two more.
posted by y2karl at 10:43 AM on August 5, 2002

Another review of McNally's book.
posted by xowie at 4:29 PM on August 5, 2002

Quality musical commentary, y'all. And I expect no less...
posted by dash_slot- at 4:51 PM on August 5, 2002

Another review of McNally's book.

Ummm....no relation...
posted by jonmc at 7:57 PM on August 5, 2002