3/26/19 at The Jackie Gleason Theater in The Fillmore, Miami Beach, FL. This is the setlist, if that sort of thing is your sort of thing.
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This is how we live now:
Used to be when the rockyroll show came to town, you camped out down at Randy’s Record Barn cuz Randy got a Ticketmaster machine set up in the back, and he’d open up at 8 or 9 or whenever and then you and your buddies would get some crullers. Show came around, you’d hop in the Nova–it burns oil, don’t worry about the smell–and shimmy on down to the Sportatorium. Sometimes the Thruway would jam up like a colon at high altitude, so you’d leave the Nova by the side of the road and take off your shirt and bip your way to the gig. Maybe you’d meet chicks, man.
This is how we live today; none of the futurists predicted how annoying the future would be, probably because they wouldn’t sell as many books.
See that fucker on the left? Right after I took this shot, he began FaceTiming the show to his dipshit buddy, who looked like a middling rabbinical student. He’s got Rabbi Putzledorf in the big screen, facing himself (and me), and they were having themselves a time.
“WOOO!” the rabbi on the phone screamed through his patchy beard. “WOOO!” the fucker in front of me screamed back towards the phone. They saluted each other with the Heavy Mental gesture.
This is the kinda shit that starts French Revolutions.
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I got there late, so I paid for the valet. It’s Miami, so all the other cars were Maseratis and Porsches and even the brand-new Lamborghini SUV.
Fuck ’em. I got $25. Park my Kia.
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Fourth row! Literally the closest I have ever been to the stage for any event, down in the pit with the temporary metal seats. I could see Don Was’ feet.
I wanted to be no closer. First row has too many responsibilities. Bobby can see you there, man. You gotta keep the energy up for the Big Bobber up front, plus everyone else in the venue kind of hates you. “How’d that asshole get in the first row? I can see how she got there, but him?” I don’t need that energy coming my way. Second row is worse, because it’s not the first row. You’re so close you can taste it! First row! IT’S RIGHT THERE, MAN! But you’re stuck in second-place. Pity the second row. Third row, as all educated men and women know, is for goobers.
Fourth row is where it’s at.
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See? Don Was’ feet. I don’t tell lies to you fuckers.
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The city of Miami looks like money, and not much else. No one will miss it.
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This is Page McConnell. (Two c’s, two n’s, two l’s.) He plays with Phish, usually, but tonight he sat in for a couple numbers at the start of Set Two.
They did Hell In A Bucket and then a reworked version of Scarlet Begonias that no one recognized at first; it was slower and, whereas Scarlet Begonias is generally not-quite-calypso, this run-through was not-quite reggae. It was stately, and sounded like something a Trinidadian high school would play at graduation.
Page sang along with Bobby, every single word, just like the rest of us.
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Someone sent me a magic cookie many months ago, and it sat in my fridge waiting for the right occasion.
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Jesus, I hope you didn’t want a review. You know we don’t do that custy shit here, braj. That’s retail; TotD is wholesale. The pure jams. The uncut jams.
The Bob.
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BOMBS AFUCKINGWAY. Everyone’s Bobby Bracket got busted when he pulled that shit out of his cargo pockets.
So I’m outside killing a dart during set break, chatting away as is my wont, when Steve or Brian or Andy or whatever cracker-ass cracker I was talking to starts in about Bombs Away. “That was off one of his solo records, right?” the guy says, so I tell him, “Yeah, but I forget which. I know it was the one with the Richard Avedon cover.”
And he’s got the nerve to look at me funny. Get some culture, Chachi. You’re lucky I didn’t give you a lecture on Cartier-Bresson and the Power of the Non-Edit.
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The whole show. She Periscoped the whole show. I don’t know what kind of phone that is, but it apparently uses a caged baby sun as a battery.
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QUESTION: Are Streamers the new Tapers?
ANSWER: If you insist on being so fucking dumb in my presence, I’m going to kill us both. Tapers have discreet microphones that are almost always matte black or gun-metal gray, because Tapers are dudes and dudes think those colors are bitchin’. Whereas Streamers are waving screens specifically designed to not let your eyes wander away from them.
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I took a break during Standing On The Moon, because I don’t begrudge Bobby any of Garcia’s old tunes–some, he even does better, like Peggy-O–but there’s only one version of SOTM for me. 9/10/91 from MSG. That’s the only time that song’s ever been sung, as far as I’m concerned. It existed briefly. It was a three-chord singularity.
Listen for yourself:
I was right, wasn’t I?
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So I’m taking my break during Standing On The Moon, and the Smoking Section is mostly empty but for Sloppy Sues and Aggro Andrews, so I start talking to the kid who had been selling Pabst Blue Ribbon for nine bucks. (One day, someone who holds doctorates in both Economics and Psychology will tell me why spending nine bucks for a tallboy of PBR is annoying, but spending six bucks for a bottle of water is infuriating.) He’s in his early 20’s, black, short dreads, skinny.
“You guys have a good night?”
“Yeah. Hippies tip good. You guys are all right.”
“We do. We do tip okay lately. Who’s the best?”
“Old people. Older the crowd, better the tips.”
“Who’s the worst?”
He didn’t even have to think about it.
“Cubans.”
Welcome to Miami.
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LOOK AT HOW FUCKING CLOSE I WAS! I totally could have Dimebag Darrel’d Bobby.
Holy. Fucking. Shit, that was inappropriate.
Is that not a thought everyone has when near a Famous Person?
No.
Just me?
Yes.
…
Well, I didn’t. Give me some credit for that.
I will give you not one shred of credit for not murdering someone. You’re supposed to not murder people.
Let’s just move on.
I don’t know if we can, or should.
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I don’t know how it used to be, but here’s your breakdown of males at a Dead-adjacent show these days: Bros and Dudes. Although many differences exist, the easiest heuristic in categorization is How They Get By You.
“Behind you, chief,” and a quick taptaptap on your shoulder? That’s a Bro.
“Hey, man. You having a good time? I’m from Philadelphia. Philadelphia! Can I squeeze on through there? Are your sneakers comfortable?” along with an elaborate handshake and perhaps a little bit too much torso-on-torso contact that may or may not develop into a full-on bear hug. This is a Dude.
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The fuckers next to me were smoking spliffs, the kind made with half-and-half weed and tobacco, and that shit smells like the Devil’s grundle. I cannot abide that European bullshit.
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For the second set, I bought a beer. The PBR tallboy for nine bucks. I wouldn’t pay the six bucks for the bottle of Aquafina, and the soda pops came from the fountain and I didn’t want to deal with a straw. My seat, when I returned to the auditorium, had been occupied and, not being in a sheriff-type mood, I stood in the aisle with everyone else.
The Bro next to me is named Brian. He introduces himself. I tell him my name is Pussylips Foster, and he says, “Righteous,” and smiles. He wants to purchase a beer and asks me to guard his spot. I tell him that I will, and immediately assume the Iron Horse position. I puff out my chest, too, and try to get the hairs on my arms to stand up. Brian returns quickly, and thanks me, and shows me that he has repaid my kindness by buying me another tallboy of PBR.
What the fuck, Brian?
First of all: way too much gratitude. I watched your section of floor for maybe four minutes, definitely not even the length of a song. This is an over-the-top gesture that now puts me in your debt. What if I have to pee? I’m not buying you a beer to watch my spot. I don’t give a shit about my spot. I’ll stand over there. Or over there. It’s all the same to me.
Second: now I gotta pound my first tallboy and crack open the second one so I don’t look ungrateful. I didn’t want this much PBR. Of the 16 ounces that I purchased, I was planning on consuming around ten of them, and I was gonna nurse the fucker through the whole set plus the encore. I have an hour-long drive home, so booze is not in the game plan, but now I gotta chug like a fratboy so I can get to your unwanted alcohol? How dare you do this to me?
Next fucker that tries to do something nice for me is getting stabbed.
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Miami belongs to the Cubans, and Fort Lauderdale to the gays, and Boca Raton to Jews; above that is NASA, Disney, and the Deep South. This is the will of the world.
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I met one of the fellows from HeadCount, which is an organization that registers Americans to vote, in the lobby. Deadheads are a prime market for voter registration: they’re patriotic, but forgetful.
“I meant to vote, man.”
The young man behind the table was clean-cut and freshly-scrubbed, which is what you want when you’re engaging in politics, even at a Dead-adjacent concert. You don’t want Moochie with his dreadlocks waving clipboards at people and getting weird.
“Cash or kind for your proxy!”
No, you need a young person in a pressed shirt.
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For about 20 minutes during the second set, Bobby ascended, one of his out-of-body experience, and the soul that departed took the ability to play guitar with it. Was it streamed? Go listen to Weather Report Suite>Let It Grow. You tell me what happened, because I was in the fourth row and did not know.
And then he started playing Masterpiece. Bobby had already played Masterpiece, in the first set. I know the chords to Masterpiece when I hear ’em, dammit, and he was playing Masterpiece. After several bars, he begins singing Standing On The Moon over the Masterpiece chords. Jay Lane and Don Was are very deliberately not looking at one another while this is occurring.
The Bobby Problem persists.
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He can still belt out the old sawhorses, and show up with a deep cut or two. He’ll strap on his sandals and wander out onto stage until he can’t, and then he’ll sit down like John Lee Hooker used to do, and he’ll have dates booked when he dies.
Bobby’s been on tour his whole life.
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David Lemieux gave me the tickets, and I want to thank him. He is a kind and intelligent man who is tied with Jeff Chimenti for the title of Best Post-Garcia Addition to the Dead, and it is out of respect for him that I did not bring Mötley Crüe into this even a little bit.
So this is the first email in years (at least a year) that actually has photos in it rather than empty boxes. Always used to get the images for the YouTube videos, but not the stills. Don’t know what you did, but please keep it up. However, just because everything can’t run perfectly in GD land, the two pictures of Bobby were upside-down in the email even though correctly rotated on the web. Don Was and Periscope photo#2 were right side up…
Can Mr. Lemieux somehow find a way to get you on the company dollar and put these out for an entire tour? Or would putting you in such close proximity to Mayer be too meta? Cause, I’m thinking Mayer’s down for meta…the more meta, the better as far as John’s concerned. I mean, have you seen ‘Current Mood.’
Either way, well done, sir.
btw, I’m glad it’s not just me that notices some ‘issues’ with Bobby’s playing these days…really difficult to get past sometimes (i.e. all of the time.)
Couple things –
Short version of long story but I used to have occasion to hang around w ranking roger (English beat – RIP as of yesterday). The only specific conversation I recall was giving him a hard time about “that European bullshit” as you aptly put it. My point – you’re in California you don’t need to do that. His – cant help it – been English my whole life.
The other thing is I spent a whole evening at a show recently yelling at people to put their fucking phones away. Later I went watched all the youtube clips that derived from those phones. I’m apparently only slightly less shitty than the baseline.
I woulda told the fucker to put his celly away or I’d stick it up his ass.
The Dimebag ref was not cool.
Best Standing on the Moon was 6-10-90. FOB Schoeps omnis is preferred. You’ll be transported back to a summer night in Sacramento. A few bass loads require a serious playback rig, but how else should one listen to Garcia?
This is probably the best concert review ever!
^^
The Dimebag ref might not have been cool, but, it was funny!