Friday, May 15, 2009

The Dead - Shoreline Ampitheater, Mountain View, CA

As we continue our series "Grateful Dead: Band Beyond Description," here's a guest post from Luke Muellerleile, who I was lucky enough to attend the 5/10 Dead show with along with two other friends. Put on your reading glasses.

Ah Mother American Night (The Dead Live @ Shoreline 5-10-09)
Link to setlist and recording: click here

Happy belated Mother's Day to all, especially you moms of "Dead" fans. It should be noted that Stew, Tyler, Adam (Witt) and I allotted adequate time to call up our mom's amid the din at the Shoreline Amphitheater parking lot in Mountain View, CA last Sunday as we prepared to see the Dead for the first time on the 2009 tour. As Stew pointed out last week this was just two days after May 8th, which marked the 32nd year anniversary of perhaps their most heralded show (or at least recording) at Cornell. Needless to say they rose to the occasion, as the jazzy/funky opener of Help on the Way seamlessly melting into a Slipknot! teaser then "rolling away the dew" into Franklin's Tower definitely set the tone. We proceeded to groove the first set in "AARP land", according to Stew, as we found ourselves in reserved seating. It happened that after a late start over to the show (we were unavoidably detained), Stew's skinny ass somehow navigated through the entrance without having his ticket torn off. So I says to him, I says, "You need to push that luck as far as you can..." and we (all 4 of us) proceeded to part the proverbial red sea of ticket-examiners to an open patch of orange seats in what could only be the 32nd row (no idea actually). It definitely brought back memories of jumping the fence to the reserved section at Float-Rite for Dylan and The Dead!

Here's a good version of the Help/Slipknot from 1990:


And Franklin's Tower from a decade earlier:


Stew and I decided (or rather I forced him) to be totally unoriginal and play the "Pick 5" game as well. The process of selecting the "5" took place sporadically throughout the weekend and I took great strides to ensure Stew was caught completely off-guard every time I solicited him for a "Pick". Not surprisingly, he came out swinging with an early pick, Good Lovin' - unfortunately I had already nabbed Franklin's Tower and also selected Bird Song from the first set. It seemed that our lists morphed into wishful thinking about songs we love that we hadn't seen live yet. For me, Bob Hunter's tribute to Janis Joplin was way up there:

All I know is something like a bird
within her sang
All I know she sang a little while
and then flew on

Unfortunately, as of 5/15, Bird Song was left off the archive recording - so was the killer "Drums" segment with the flying and the magic, but here it is on you tube:


Uncle John's Band closed off the first set in sing-along style, but it was becoming increasingly clear that our stay in the lush seats was coming to an end. By then opening of the second set, we'd relocated to more familiar territory on the lawn, and were witnessing the emergence of the best version of the band I've heard since the days of Jerry (in my humble opinion). The core 4 were clicking, with exceptional Phil-bombing on the second set opener 'Unbroken Chain' (another pick of mine), Bobby rockin' out on 'The Other One', and the 'Rhythm Devils' completely stealing the show - no fault of the barely clad, fire-dancing females in accompaniment. Jeff took over nicely on the keyboards in 'The Other One' and 'Sugaree' and had Witt face-melting on more than one occasion. Warren's licks were appropriately sentimental in the twangy 'Sugaree' out of Space, but promptly upped the anty with a second rendition of the 'Gimme Shelter' cover on the tour (perhaps you'll recall where the first occurred). The second set closed with further anticipation, as if Sugar Magnolia was preheated the oven for something grander - Mickey did suggest before the show that the "curfew" was lifted due to the late start, so perhaps we were about to see...


A triple encore! After a heartfelt Phil rap, they jumped right into St. Stephen. This was a special moment where you could really sense the collective vibe coming together - and I'm not just talking about getting my fourth song right. The crowd was serendipitously synchronized and so was the band. About 10 minutes into St. Stephen they broke out a Foxy Lady-esque interlude, then in the subsequent The Eleven jam there were definite signs of the Allman Bros style in Warren around 7:45 minutes...perhaps and ode to Blue Sky? I totally missed the soloing sample of Foxy Lady (someone pointed it out to me since) and I didn't catch the Allman Bros riff until a second listen - but I do recall Bobby starting a little too early in one of the St. Stephen verses. Ahem...and to close off the show properly if not popularly, the "Dead" chimed out their all-but-sanctioned national anthem, Touch of Grey. It was a fitting send-off to the "apocalyptic scene" (according to Witt) that awaited us in the parking lot. And it went on to comfort me the little time I was awake during my 6:20AM flight back the next morning...

Its a lesson to me, the devils and the east and the free
The abcs we all must face, try to save a little grace

Good times - I hope we will survive to see many more.

Luke

2 comments:

  1. Wow, those fire rings were hot! Sounds like the show was also, gotta download for a full listen as I fly to Vegas tonight. Several repeat jams from The Garden show, they teased foxy lady there too. Nice to hear the pick 5 has continued, well done on 4 of 5.

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  2. wow i'm impressed with the unbroken chain pick. very impressive.

    sounds like a hell of a show

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