How I spent my summer vacation 7/6/15 (after it’s over). Somebody scheduled the Grateful Dead Fare Thee Well Chicago #2 night at the same time as Aretha Franklin at Saturday In The Park at Sioux City. There were some notable moments in Sioux City (although not from Aretha as far as I’m concerned) but let’s just gloss over those. Try to catch the North Mississippi All Stars someplace sometime.
Now, about that Grateful Dead reunion at Soldier Field, which is where I personally saw them last, although that was in 1994, and I didn’t attend in 1995. Still, that’s where I left off. So did everybody. They came back because Bob in particular seemed to think it would be necessary due to the fact that it’s 50 years after the band pretty much started.
They played two nights in Santa Clara last weekend, and I wrote about those on my Facebook page and I’m pretty sure I felt enthusiastic about those two nights. If you were me, you sort of had to be. There was some noise on the Internet about Phil doing too much singing and some other stuff, most of which I also mentioned on my Facebook page. I don’t mind Phil’s singing-he’s been at it for a long time now and I think he’s getting better, but I am also extremely reluctant to criticize his style or delivery because he is, ah, A FOUNDING MEMBER OF THE BAND who always did do some singing. It is not up to me how they divide that up (the singing thing).
There are folks who wonder why they seem to do Drums/Space every night. It is probably somewhat politically incorrect of me to mention it, but there are probably other people who don’t like hearing that little extra track in every show when Phil does his Donor Rap either.
Sometimes they goof up some words or some little timing thing or maybe the keyboards are somehow mixed too low (they were in the YouTube video, but not-so-much in the audience recordings I have, and anyway, they seem to have fixed that for the last four shows). I thought sometimes it was funny that the cameras didn’t follow the guitar that was soloing. Surely, they didn’t have somebody in the production chain who wasn’t particularly familiar with who was playing what, did they?
Let’s slip over to Sioux City for a moment here. I met several interesting people and had several interesting conversations, but during the break between somebody and somebody, a kid accosted me with “hey, were you in the Sixties”? I told him I was familiar with the era. He then proceeded to ask me if I’d ever seen Janis Joplin. Well, no, but I did catch Big Brother & The Holding Co. at some surprise performance in Iowa City. Janis had become Kathi McDonald. The kid wanted to know if I’d ever heard the Jefferson Airplane. Well, heard, of course. Saw ’em once when they were Jefferson Starship but even they thought they sucked that night (Grace apologized, it was the last night of a tour which had been in Europe and her voice was shot).
Then the kid said it: “I hate the Grateful Dead”. That’s a funny thing to tell me on the Fourth Of July at a musical event while we’re talking about loving bands from San Francisco. I was unable to decipher whatever it was that the kid was trying to use as his explanation for that, but I countered with “did you notice that little Quicksilver Messenger Service” lick in that last band’s one song?”. The kid didn’t get it. It was a line from Who Do You Love that I was mentioning. The one that goes like “who do you love”?
The kid didn’t hear it. I’m not positive that I did either, but I’m pretty sure, although I’ve already forgotten the band’s name. I had already lost my patience with the kid. I knew the answer when I asked him “have you ever BEEN to a Grateful Dead show?”. He was clearly under 20 and the band stopped suddenly 20 years ago. Don’t do the math and you come up with the same answer. Of course he hadn’t, and he replied “oh you woulda had to have been there huh?”.
Oh, I don’t know. It certainly helps. I told him “don’t worry about it, not even THEY liked their records”. I wasn’t wearing any Dead related anything, by the way. I saw two t-shirts all day-one on the guitar player for the BB King tribute and one green shirt on a random guy that had a Steal Your Face on it. So the kid couldn’t have been sure whether *I* had ever been to a Dead show. He had no idea they were playing in Chicago, nor was he going to.
Eventually it gets to be time to see Aretha Franklin. I am skeptical. It gets to be PAST time. This event has a well-defined closing time and they’re on schedule. With 40 minutes to go (including encore time) it’s gonna be over and she’s not there. FINALLY her orchestra annoys guys like me with some stuff and they announce Aretha like she’s in Las Vegas someplace.
She came out and did some stuff until thirteen minutes after ten and seems to be done. The orchestra stretches out the time with another number or two and Aretha reappears for what has to be RESPECT and does one of those long gospel raps about whatever health scare she had recently. Other reviewers will no doubt say otherwise, but I believe that is all you need to know.
Back to Chicago. Thanks to the magic of Video On Demand I can watch the Saturday Night show (#4), but it takes me a little while because I have to crash and et. cetera. Of course I checked the setlist, but it was impossible NOT to guess at least the closer and the encore. A lot of the middle of the list was stuff that if I HAD to miss it, I was willing to miss it and watch this nice video later.
They rarely get it completely right of course and you learn that, if you put ’em too high on the pedestal.
Sunday filled up instantly here with that video followed by the Sunday (last) show. I had already been struck by this, but I have never heard five Grateful Dead shows in a row like these last ones in which I could understand all the words. It doesn’t hurt to take 40 years to study the lyrics, but none the less, both of the “new” singers-Trey and Bruce, enunciate quite well, and it’s unusual that I can’t understand Phil or Bob. So it sounds nice.
But it’s not just nice. It’s really really good, with no goofy technical stuff and a band that has had a while to think about the set list. No tuning, just a well-run set after set. The sound is almost perfect, the lights coordinate well, the band is REALLY professional. They nailed stuff they never got right in the first place. They updated stuff from the first album that they DIDN’T cook on the road for decades.
Since those seven guys had only technically played five shows for the world by the time they got done, it was good enough to be something that was just getting started.
Even Weir assures us now “more stuff will happen”.
I guess, for me, it provides a closure I’m not sure I was looking for. The Grateful Dead once drove their record label crazy by churning out weird stuff; they didn’t like playing in a studio in the first place. It used to be unheard-of for somebody to leak a set list like they’ve been doing lately, mostly because the band didn’t HAVE one unless they maybe called those from a huddle at the line of scrimmage. They never HAD a night that didn’t have some little delays for something-or-other (ok, maybe they have, but I never saw one). Or forgotten lyrics, not there weren’t a couple here, or trouble just playing together, or a surly crowd to please. But they just don’t turn in technically next-to-perfect shows like that, even if they think they’re “taping” (grin, they were always “taping”).
So as we go forward, my biggest realization is in that small point: was this just all a money grab?
Are you kidding? NOBODY delivers three nights like those last Chicago shows who is merely selling something. Those guys were still perfecting “The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)”. No, it was not all a money grab. There were grabbers, no doubt about it, but they weren’t standing on the stage.
I hope they reconsider that “never again” part, but if they don’t, I saw a perfect show; we all did.
