We've seen Bob and Phil separately many times since then of course, but the two only played together informally out around their home base of Marin County California (also at the Fare Thee Well concerts in 2015). Phil has started to make a few exceptions to his "no more touring" edict, though these tours have been very short. Then they suddenly announced back in December that they'd be playing a short tour as a duo: two nights at Radio City Music Hall, two at the Wang Center in Boston, and then two at the Chicago Theatre.
I think this announcement excited a lot of people besides us. Many GD fans are past the point of going to see rock concerts (or feel they are!) and so avoid the overhead of (e.g.) a full-blast Dead & Company show with all the craziness of going to an arena, wading through acres of stoned hippies, and then seeing a non-intimate concert with full light show, imagery, and sound. I can see this, that's the way I felt for years. But this tour brought the promise of seeing two of the most key original band members in an intimate setting, such as seeing Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady do acoustic sets in small theaters (a setting we've seen them in many times) or perhaps a Simon and Garfunkel, but better!
Anyway, the panic of getting tickets as soon as they went on pre-sale was as intense as you might expect. Sarah went for Wednesday and was able to get three together way up in the right-hand section of the balcony. I went for Thursday and that one was probably even more popular. I tried several times to get three tickets together and was denied, so I ended up getting two together in the back-right of the orchestra and then finally was able to get one more in the center of the balcony. Friends F&P managed to get tickets to Wednesday also, and we were set!
A long winter ensued ... and then finally Wednesday March 7 rolled around and it was time! There were problems of course: I was in the midst of recovering from an ear infection and there was a damaging Nor'easter expected on the New England coast that day. Neither of these dampened our enthusiasm. I picked up Sarah and Dave after work at their building and we drove over to a garage near the Theater District, and met F&P for dinner at Jacob Wirth's (the second oldest restaurant in Boston, and currently on the block but still serving).
Split up with F&P on the cold, rainy sidewalk (the forecast blizzard had not yet appeared) and found our way into the Wang (the whilom Boston Music Hall on Tremont St.), where we got t-shirts and a poster and then climbed to our seats way upstairs.
We'd seen the opening two shows on webcast from Radio City Music Hall and they'd been more than spectacular. The duo was accompanied by percussionist Wally Ingram on some songs on the opening night, and they brought out no other "special guests." They didn't need them! They stuck to early songs (the latest composition was Sailor/Saint), Phil was in fine voice and their harmonies and jams were like being back home.
The phrase "primal Dead" refers to a particular period in their career, but could also be used to describe what they brought to the stage. We were seeing two of the originals playing, singing, and re-inventing some of the greatest songs I've ever heard, like they were about to go into the studio and lay down a Workingman's Dead or an American Beauty. Jesse Jarnow wrote a great review of the Radio City shows in Rolling Stone, and the phrase "Thrillingly Loose" was used in the headline, and it was very much my reaction.
For the second night in NYC, they were accompanied by Ingram as before but were also joined by Trey Anastasio on guitar for the second set. As great as they'd been with just the duo and percussionist, they were amazing with Trey, especially because he was obviously dedicated to supplementing the pair rather than becoming a full band.
Anyway, he'd been rumored as a special guest in NYC and that had happened. This same rumor mill had it that John Mayer would be the accompanist they brought out in Boston. We also speculated about others, like Steve Kimock, John Kadlecik, Larry Campbell, Jorma Kaukonen, etc. They accentuated this drama by tuning up behind a curtain at the start of each set and then having the curtain pull back to reveal their stage arrangement.
So ... there we were in the balcony staring at the beautiful, lofty Wang Center ceilings and walls. I also checked out the seat from which I'd seen the GD back in '73 of course, and then hung out with F&P while we waited. Eventually the theater was packed with excited people, we could hear the pair tuning, and then the curtain opened to show us good ol' Bobby with his walrus hair and acoustic guitar, good ol' Phil back in goddamn Boston(!) with his electric bass, and Wally Ingram back on percussion (he could have ditched the wind chimes but whatever). They blasted right into the beautiful, intricate blues of ... well, here's the first set:
Loose Lucy
Me and My Uncle
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Deep Elem Blues
Althea
Bird Song
He's Gone
It's a little sobering to hear the soundboards from the shows and realize that there were a lot more flubs and awkward moments in them than we heard live. For one thing, we were mesmerized by actually seeing two of the best musicians in the world playing together like a pair of old socks ... they knew exactly what each other was going to do, most of the time. And for another thing there were so many great moments that the awkward ones seemed part of the live charm.
There were no renditions of the Yellow Dog story (or the Duck story) that night, but there was some extreme playing. As mentioned, their harmonizing was exquisite (before Phil's voice got tired) and the verses and choruses were great and had everyone singing along. But then the magic of that part of the song was over and the *real* magic started when they stepped back from the mikes, started watching each other's hands intently, and played measure after measure of liquid gold, jamming to the farthest reaches of the song (while always letting a little of the melody stick around), and then leading us back to the next verse or the bridge or outro.
Bob made some decisions on guitar which were debatable. He switched to his sunburst Strat with large white pick-guard more often than he might have. Perhaps he should have stayed on his beautiful acoustic more often or played the "green guitar" that he had on stage but very rarely picked up. Althea was done in a different style than normal, with Phil taking the lead for most of the song and Bob playing a very funky, effect-laden sequence of chords on his sunburst. I thought this was one of the best songs of the set actually, while Dave thought it unsuccessful.
But that was another example of the magic we were seeing and hearing. They had played these songs many, many times before (in fact they'd played every one of these songs in NYC except for Althea and Masterpiece, an unusual number of repeats for a GD band), but they managed to find a freshness in everything they played. Sometimes this was represented by a new arrangement or a new verse or a new tempo, but sometimes just by a new run here or accent there. The spirit of adventure that marks Grateful Dead music was thrillingly present.
OK, they'd loosened up, paid homage to the classic cowboy songs and Dylan, then knocked us over with an excellent bluesy Deep Elem, woke us up with an aggressive sound on Althea, gotten *way* out there on Bird Song, and then wrapped up the set with a sad, pretty, sing-along He's Gone. Yay!! Short set but we knew they were going to go late.
The set break took forever. Somebody near me was timing it and announced at one point that the break had now taken longer than the first set. But we had all seen that there was a setup for another guitarist to Phil's left (Bobby was on his right), and we were guessing and guessing about what we'd see when they opened the curtain. Dave guessed that that was Larry Campbell's guitar, and he was right. Here's a picture of the five of them warming up backstage in Boston, taken by Jay Blakesberg:
The curtain opened and there were Larry and Teresa and we were very happy! Especially when Larry started into that guitar run that I first heard over and over when Blues For Allah first came out, and have thrilled to ever since. Here's the second set and some notes:
Crazy Fingers
Friend Of the Devil
Tennessee Jed
The Maker
Cryptical Envelopment
The Other One
Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo
Black Peter
The Music Never Stopped
- As good as Larry was he never upstaged Bobby and Phil of course; wonderful player that he is, he knew what he was doing out there, and he allowed Bobby to take over Crazy Fingers between leads.
- Yeah but ... Larry picked up his mandolin for FOTD and one of the highlights of the night was his sparkling leads on that. Bobby was hiding out in a cave up in the hills and Phil was singing about the devil offering him $20, but Larry was in the background dropping jaws.
- And then Larry went back to his dirty electric for Tennessee Jed and tried to take over the song he'd won a Grammy with when working with Levon Helm. But Bob and Phil know how to react to a musical challenge and soon they were leading him back to Tennessee.
- Teresa was also a great accompanist, staying still in the background most of the time, and then approaching her mike at the just the right moment, while watching Bob intently. He wasn't about to shake her, she was right with him. Their duo vocals on The Maker (the Daniel Lanois song which JGB did) were exquisite.
- And then they started into a short Cryptical and Dave let out a yelp because we knew what was coming next. Soon Phil got louder and louder and started booming and then...
- The Other One! Bob was a little reserved on vocals compared to some of the times we've seen him recently and didn't nail these verses the way he sometimes has. But the guitar and bass work was awesome.
- Their lack of recent practice showed in their inability to segue between some of the songs when they wanted to. But we were fine with the full stops, especially when followed by a song like Half-Step!
- And then a song I knew they were going to play. I've gone on about my opinions of Black Peter (very high) and I knew Bobby was going to sing it to me again (which he can't do well) and it was fun. But I took a piss break here, though I didn't run into the same guys in the bathroom that I had at this juncture in April 2012.
- And then they capped it off with Music, a surprising but delightful choice! The whole song was excellent but the enduring moment for me was when Teresa sang meekly behind Bob on the first bridge, and then on the second one he seemed to expect the same and she was having none of it. She stepped up to the mike and told us all in no uncertain terms at top Teresa volume to keep on dancing until daybreak, and to greet the morning air with song. Bob looked over at her, startled, and then he just shrugged and let her go!
Woohoo! It was almost midnight and we started getting our coats on so we could leave quickly and get Dave to a Red Line stop for the last train to Quincy. Short break here, and then tall, thin, and stooping a bit Phil Lesh came out and the crowd roared. We were so glad to have him back in Boston in good health, playing his bass like he always had. He mentioned how glad he was to be back in Boston, and then went into a short and sweet donor rap.
Bobby and the crew came back out and they launched into Touch Of Grey, another repeat from the New York shows. We stuck around for a little bit and then took off because we didn't want to strand Dave. And when we got outside the blizzard had started! Wet and damaging snow was blowing sideways and we had to duck in and out of the shelter of buildings to make it back to the parking garage.
We dropped Dave at Park Street and stuck around long enough for him to text us that he'd made the train. We circled the Common, got onto Storrow through the thick snow blanketing the city streets, and then made it up to 93 North. The road surface up there was even worse and we crawled all the way back to Woburn through thick piles of snow. Whatever, we made it back finally and got to bed sometime around 1:30. Got to do it again tomorrow!
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