Tag: 7/4/15

Fourth Set (Pre-Drums)

July 17, 2015 / Thoughts On The Dead / 21 Comments

It is now completely dark.
It looks like this.
Luckily, the Grateful Dead has arranged for lights, so it also looks like this.
A lot of the sets and songs began with loosey-goosey jams to ease their way into the tune; this is because otherwise, they would have had to rehearse.
Once you get the song rolling, you can fake your way through it.
Intros and endings need a run-through.
Phil Song.
Okay, we have been dancing around a point and I will here resort to honest reportage.
When Phil started singing Bird Song, a man in our row cried, “Oh, not Bird Song!” as if his favorite child had been trampled by the cow.
This fellow was prepared to hear a China Phil Sunflower or a Ramble On Phil, but Phil Song staggered him; he was not prepared for it.
Y’know, if these guys got three or four tours under their belt, they’d be tight.
Dead, but tight.
Top o’ the World, Ma: Treblinka, who is sending the same spacey, large-intervalled cascades of notes over the jam’s bow.
“The jam is taking on water, captain!”
“I’m sorry: who’s the captain? At least two guys on this stage who look like they hire our their schooners to tourists.”
No: I was mistaken: Mickey has not changed shirts.
I repeat: Mickey is wearing the same, non-Dead, shirt as the first set.
Jeff Chimenti seems to have to fuck with his own gear between songs.
Does Jeff Chimenti not get a Benjy?
Everybody else got a Benjy, so that sucks if Jeff Chimenti is just kinda floating around by himself and carrying things.
Temporary though his Grateful Deadness was, he was fully-carded and bonded as a Grateful Dead.
Grateful Deads get Benjys.
Tropicana and Bruce are now singing Golden Road, which is a good rocker, and on the close-up, Bruce looks adorable.
He is twinkly-eyed and having a blast, but he is also clearly reading the lyrics from a pad in front of him.
Like this was Megalomaniacal Karaoke Night at a Bond villain’s place.
There are four Grateful Deads singing this little coda bit and if you asked them what the exact words to the song were, you would get four different answers.
Do not get me wrong: they all pretty much know the words.
Each of them honestly believes that his is the correct version.
Another thing ten minutes of rehearsal could have nipped in the bud.
Although in the several tours worth of the disco version of Dancin’ in the Streets, they never all knew the same words, either.
This might be an inbred trait.
Top o’ the World, Ma: Jeff Chimenti, who is straining like a stallion with the smell a mare in his nose.
Jeff Chimenti has a prettier mane than any horse, though.
Garcia always had long hair, and Bobby would go back and forth, but other than that, the Dead wasn’t a longhair band.
Wait.
Brent.
I abandon my thesis.
Lost Sailor now and Bobby is acting shit out for some reason and I hit the bathroom and beer stand.
(Sorry, Bobby.)
I got a bit lost, and might have been hit on: it was an odd bathroom and beer stand run.
Except right now all I want to do is watch the Dead TV show instead of being back in the stadium; there is weirdly little emotional resonance between the event and the show on the screen and I cannot put myself back in Section 226, Row 7, Seat 6.
It’s just TV, and not even particularly good TV by the standards of the medium.
But apparently this is how it happened.
Can’t argue with it, no room to slide around it: small triumphs and dragging lags and mistimed close-ups.
I seem to recall having fun.
But I’ve now locked myself into not re-experiencing the show, as one can do with closed eyes and audio, but experiencing for the first time something vaguely related but of a completely different genus.
Like how horses and cows kinda look alike, but really have zip to do with one another.
On the upside: I totally did this to myself.
On the upperside: I threw a little tantrum while I did it.
Yay, me.
Bobby’s hair and beard looks very fluffy.
Bobby looks like this a little:
Who’s a good Bobby? Who is?
When Bobby saing the bit about how he’s still walking and sure that he can dance, he almost broke down; he tried to cover it up, but I saw it.
Jeff Chimenti has been allowed to sing backing vocals on Saint and it makes me sad Jeff Chimenti was not allowed to sing more.
That’s fuckin’ Dead hipster, man: a t-shirt with Let Jeff Sing on it.
If you wore that shirt, you should get a medal and a kick to the shin.
There was a moment in Saint, at the end, when Bobby told us to go for it: was it my moment?
I had been promised a transcendent moment, you see.
If it was, it was gone now – replaced by the television’s version.
TV doesn’t do transcendent moments.
Lot of close-ups of fingers.
Not as much transcendence.
Bruce is singing West LA Fadeaway and fucking that shit up; if you don’t like West LA Fadeaway, then I’ll never be able to figure you out.
Disliking this song is alien to me; I spit it from my mouth like tepid water; get the fuck out of here with your foolishness.
Later on, I called this song West L Trey Trey-da-Trey and my companions neither struck me with cause nor left me (in a tunnel we somehow had wandered into) to be eaten by the Death Bunnies of Chicagoland.
But, now I don’t feel friendship or excitement or joy: just watching TV.
All television that’s not Archer can suck my ass.
Ooh, I forgot they played Foolish Heart.
I love me some Foolish Heart.
I love it more played faster than this.
We quickly reach a point of diminishing returns, obviously: I would not love a Foolish Heart played at speed-metal tempos.
Now, I want to hear that.
With the growly, Cookie Monster vocals.
Let’s take this bright and shiny Triskadekaphobia solo to note Bobby’s jeans and remind ourselves that they “were advertised and sold as a lengthy short.”
Sometimes Jeff Chimenti will be playing one ridiculously heavy and finicky keyboard over here and then all of a sudden he HAS TO PLAY THAT ONE THERE.
It’s like when a cat decides it needs to be in the next room.
Brobediah Stane?
Brohammed Ali?
BroJ Simpson?
What?
NOTHING FOOLISH ABOUT THIS FOOLISH HEART JAM, YO.
Fine. Drums.

Third Set

July 16, 2015 / Thoughts On The Dead / 24 Comments

This is where we were sitting.
Now I am sitting on my couch.
Holy Roman Emperors couldn’t do this type of thing
Shakedown Street had to be the opener because it was the Fourth of July and the Dead don’t have any songs that usually open shows that also mention the holiday.
Maybe in 37 more years, Deadheads will come to a consensus about what beat the WOO in Shakedown is on.
Killin’ It Now: Bobby, who is a sea-captain.
Things we now know about Jeff Chimenti: he is married.
Things we can now speculate about Jeff Chimenti: he prefers to make love to his wife in tandem with Bruce, as well.
Mickey is not–I repeat, NOT–wearing a Dead shirt.
But he puts one on for the second set, and it’s still a drumming shirt he’s got on, and Billy’s wearing a Dead shirt, so you know: don’t worry.
Not only is Billy covering the “guy wearing the shirt of the band he’s currently in” base, but it’s a bitchin’ shirt.
This is the shirt, but this is not Billy.
“Hey, guys: what do you like best about America?”
“Freedom.”
“Liberty.”
“Being left alone.”
“Well, that song’s written.”
‘Wait, don’t put your pen down: does the chorus have a chord that’s wrong?”
“It does now!”
Out of all the songs from Chicago, this was the one that got in my head.
That wasn’t funny.
Killin’ It Now: Bruce.
I’ve never claimed to be Deadier-than-thou and this song is no exception: I do not know it very well.
It’s not a particularly good song
I guess that Hunter thought freedom and liberty were self-explanatorily good things, but I prefer a reasoned argument for rugged individualism in my choogly-type songs.
Oh, by the way: next motherfucker that steals “choogly” is getting bitten.
I will give you human bites on your torso.
Mickey just reached out for the towel that was not there and gave his Benjy a look of withering death.
Ah.
Right.
Dammit.
We come, Enthusiasts, to the first hiccup of the night: Standing on the Moon.
No problem with the tune: it’s a strong, if a bit underdone, addition to the roster of Garcia Weepers.
No problem with the performance: Troubadour Arglebargle’s untrained wisp of a voice has a lot in common with Garcia’s reedy tenor and he sings and plays well.
Also, he does not update the lyrics and change El Salvador to Afghanistan or some bullshit like that.
No, the problem is that it’s still light out, man.
Maaaaaan.
IT;S ABOUT THE MOON.
It’s not really even a metaphor: the narrator’s literally standing on the moon looking down at Earth.
LET THE MOON COME OUT BEFORE YOU SING THE MOON SONG.
However, the temptation to project, like, Garcia faces all over the place when the line about being with you came around was avoided and that is a good thing.
Killin’ It Now: Fuckin’ Treyvon, broham.
Do not question; back the fuck up; let the man and his rock and roll balls go through.
HE’S DOING THE FANNING THING.
THIS GUY IS DOING THE THING THE OTHER GUY DID.
I LOVE THAT THING AND HE DID THE THING.
It’s about this dark now.
How do you blow the moon thing?
Anyway, I love Me and My Uncle and sang along with it at the top of my lungs, and so did a lot of other folks.
Billy continues to hate Bobby’s cowboy songs and have an awful poker face.
Bobby is now singing Tennessee Jed, but now Bruce is singing Tennessee Jed.
Has Bruce always sounded like a mystical hobo from New Orleans?
When Bobby sings the line about the law coming to getcha, he mimes a cop pulling his collar.
Did he always want to do that?
Like, every time Garcia sang the line, he was thinking, “If I ever get my shot, this is how Bobby’d do it.”
Sure, the tempo could be faster.
Lots of things could be lots of things, man.
Phil’s having the time of his crazy life.
Just smiling and grinning and happy to be out of the restaurant.
Trey and Bruce should do stuff together: their voices blend and they seem to be always trying to catch each other’s eye onstage, except there’s 80 feet in between
Music stuff.
Gay stuff if they want, and they’re upfront with their wives and families about their desires, and each other with their boundaries.
Fun fact: Both of their safe words is “Benjy.”
This Jed is being rampaged upon.
Bite the curb, Jed.
I told you to bite the fucking curb, Jed.
CUMBERLAND!
ONE-THIRD OF THE WAY TO SIX!
Seriously: why?
I mean, I love Cumberland as much as the next guy, as long as the next guy is mostly all right with Cumberland.
Plus, they did it in Santa Clara.
Oh, God, are they trying to do an Americana set?
Godammit, Grateful Dead: you are outrunning your coverage.
Millionaires in a stadium dedicated to soldiers singing a song about impoverished miners to PTA members.
There are great shots of the crowd taken by the Wallenda-Cam.
That’s not its real name; I don’t know what the thing is called; I mean the robot camera suspended from the parapets of the stadium by four cables.
You saw them at football games starting five years ago or so and now I guess they’re for everything and they ZIIIIIP and zzzzzzOOOOM around the playing field, but forty feet up or so, which in some intangible way now extends the playing field upwards and makes the whole shebang a much more dramatic deal.
It is not, though, a drone.
Robot, sure, but not a drone.
They’re coming, though: give it five years before those jabberwhatnots are flitting around the stadium getting every possible angle.
Until the fans in Philadelphia start throwing D batteries at them, knocking them from the sky, and amputating the faces of several innocent children and Phanatics.
In Oakland, several unemployed crystal meth dealers hurled themselves off the mezzanine at the drones, bringing them down in the ways of the Sky People, and lighting revel fires where the technofucks crashed and died.
In Arlington, when the drones launched at the first Cowboy game of the year, the fans began to worship the drones, thinking them to be many small Jesuses.
Little Red Rooster would have been a lot tougher to get through if I didn’t have my friend Imagination.
Friend of the Devil was always one of my favorite Phil songs, and Truffleoil shoves a pen in the ear of the solo.
I like the fast version of this song, and I also like the slow one.
I might like Lyle Lovett’s the best, but don’t tell anyone.
This version always reminded me of the suits men wore in the Old West.
Starched collars and wool and formality while the land got stolen and the rivers started to die.
Plus cello.
Cellos make anything seem solemn and ethereal.
I may or may not have muted Phil of the Devil to listen to Lyle Lovett, but I’m back now for the set-ending Deal.
Singers have certain keys they like – it’s not that they can;t hit the notes in some keys, but their voices don’t sound right.
Deal is in the right key for Treyvon and Bruce.
I would like to see those two in a a reality show.
Trustfund has several faces that he enjoys making at crowds: we’ll get to the others, but his Rocking Face is passable.
Oh, but now he’s doing some sort of thing with his mouth that is quite unsettling.
He is also Garcianating all over the stage
“I AM THE GARCIA!”
Adorable Dead Nonsense #3,911: if you’re a classical musician–in the symphony, orchestra, any of that shit–and you turn your head at a fellow musician’s mistake, you might as well pack your oboe case.
Firable offense and one of the most massive breaches of etiquette you can make.
It’s up there with fucking a guy’s tuba.
You don’t turn around when someone clams, and you don’t fuck strangers’ brass instruments.
No matter how bad that slutty tuba is asking for it.
Bobby, on the other hand, stares at people and throws up his hands, which is both adorable and nonsense.
Dude, set ended ten minutes ago.
I was on a roll.

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