My first Grateful Dead show was March 20, 1971, Iowa City. That was enough for me-that was what I liked from then on. My girlfriend dumped me at at that point because I was turning weird.
I followed them until the end, which was in 1995, and after that through a number of iterations, until now.
Before the Internet, Deadheads made and traded tapes of live shows (no, I don’t have a lot of those) and kept set lists, published by various means. When I arrived at Iowa’s Deadhead capital (according to Kyle Munson, Des Moines Register 2015), Byron’s Bar, Pomeroy, I expanded my horizons a bit, mainly because I had to (man does not live by Dead alone), but I kept making set lists and bought a recorder and began to record the nights there because somebody had to.
Byron’s may be the Deadhead capital of Iowa, but in my short stay there (three years), only one exactly-Dead band (Winterland) has played there, and one Dead interpretation band (Twang Is Dead). Musicians know where they’re playing and some play Uncle John’s Band, Ripple, L.A. Fadeway and the like, and Mace Hathaway, former road manager for Dark Star Orchestra, often digs a little deeper.
So, despite the facts that I’m twenty-five years sick of “tributes” and that I’m not going to shell out a couple hundred dollars to catch Dead And Company someplace, I was anxious to hear Touch Of Grey from the Omaha area, but I was skeptical-this is a band that’s just a couple of years old.
Touch Of Grey opened with “Brokedown Palace”, which is what I called the house I left in 2005. The first thing I noticed was that these five guys all sing, and their harmonies were very good. There was nobody in the original band who was really a singer-only the front men who sang because somebody had to.
Ok, they set themselves aside; I had never considered the possibility that the songs could exist for “singin’s sake” (thanks, Ryne Doughty). Especially after Owsley interjected himself, the Dead were accomplished musicians with good toys, but nobody was a true vocalist and when they tried doing some harmony stuff to get Warner Brothers off their backs about the records they’d been making, they really had to work at it, and I’d predict that non-head purists cringe when they hear the American Beauty stuff.
We liked the jams, dude.
Over the decades, as I’ve tried to introduce other people to that stuff, usually my intended victims’ eyes glaze over. I have learned to stay in my own circles.
Touch Of Grey is some kind of anomaly (as was the album which was their namesake); they play in Dead spirit, but not with imitation.
To begin with, their configuration is a little different – no rhythm guitar. Just a guitar, a bass, drums, keyboards and a (mostly) static singer (with the obligatory tambourine) who can actually sing. There was no Jerry/Bob/Brent review, where they traded off throughout the night. That made a difference; it focused my attention on Robert Hunter’s writing (there was only one John Barlow tune all night).
The band didn’t particularly jam, although there was a semi-long China Cat Sunflower -> Sugar Magnolia -> I Know You Rider late in the night which ran 13:59. I realized something about all the people I’ve tried to drag in over the years. What didn’t they like? I’d say they didn’t like the sometimes indecipherable lyrics, the long jams, the Drums/Space thing, and what could be incessant tuning. These guys didn’t reach much beyond five minutes and while there was some interesting introductory banter between most songs, especially explanations of how they’d selected non-Dead covers, the night flowed very professionally without the interruptions that usually lose folks with two minute attention spans.
Band:
Matt Wilber (lead vocals)
John Scherle (guitar, vocals)
DaVal Johnson (keys, harmonies)
Sandy Steckman (bass, harmonies)
Josh Mason (drums, high harmony)
Set 1
Brokedown Palace
Althea
Jack Straw
Doctor My Eyes
Green River
Ripple
Big Boss Man
Wake Up Little Susie
Light My Fire
Sugaree
New Speedway Boogie
Into The Mystic
Not Fade Away – Goin’ Down The Road Feeling Bad
Set 2
Eyes Of The World
Me And My Uncle
Touch Of Grey
Werewolves Of London
Mama Tried
New MInglewood Blues
Uncle John’s Band
Brown Eyed Women
Dear Prudence
Deal
Good Lovin’
C.C. Rider
U.S. Blues
Feelin’ Alright?
Set 3
Sugar Magnolia > China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider
Casey Jones
The Weight
Hell In A Bucket
Franklin’s Tower
All Along The Watchtower
Bertha
Last Dance With Mary Jane
Shakedown Street
Truckin’
Vehicle
No Sugar Tonight
“I equate Deadheads to people that like black licorice. There aren’t many people that like black licorice, but the ones that do, REALLY REALLY like it! Or buttermilk, or whatever.”
Dear Prudence:
Uncle John’s Band:
Brown Eyed Women:
