Hot Tuna Electrifies the Wilbur

Just a short blog about going to see Hot Tuna electric at the Wilbur on August 21^st.  You can imagine that we were very excited to once more be able to see this classic combination rock out, and they did not disappoint.    We were second row center in the balcony, which made for fantastic sound, and of course famous Hot Tuna fan PeterP was in attendance, a few rows behind us.

Dave Mason opened and played a long set with another electric guitarist, a drummer, and a keyboardist.  The guy on keys had bass pedals and Mason introduced him as “our bass player and keyboardist.”  But at several times the lack of a real bassist left a hole in their sound.

Some of their songs were fantastic, like Pearly Queen, a spacey, jazzy cover of High Heeled Boys (which we’d seen Phil Lesh cover), and Only You Know and I Know.  He also did great covers of Cream’s Badge and Dylan’s Watchtower (he pointed out that he did the guitar intro on Electric Ladyland).  But the song we all were waiting for (especially because this was billed as his “Feelin’ Alright” tour) kind of disappointed.  I mean, how can you excel on Feelin’ Alright without a bass player?

Here’s his setlist:

• World In Changes
• Pearly Queen
• Dear Mr. Fantasy
• Rock and Roll Stew
• The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys
• Can’t Find My Way Home
• We Just Disagree
• Look At You Look At Me
• Shouldn’t Have Took More Than You Gave
• Only You Know and I Know
• Badge
• Feelin’ Alright
• All Along the Watchtower

 Didn’t take that long to set up for Hot Tuna and soon Jorma and Jack came on and just burned the place down.  Jack must have taken some kind of vitamins because he was an unleashed psychic tiger all night.  He did a little bouncing around the stage and had some of that eyebrow work going, but he mostly just stayed in place like a rock and played possibly the best concert I’ve ever heard him play, not that he’s ever been less than fantastic.

Jorma was trying to keep up and did a fine job of it, but this was Jack Casady’s concert.  Dave and I had to stare at each other open-mouthed after some songs, there was not much to say except, “Did we just hear that?”  The color, the tonal strength, the pure power, the woodenness of his bass was incredible.  It must have been the coincidence of our great seats right in the middle of the theater, the instrument, and the player that made for this wonderfully memorable experience.

The setlist itself was not great:

• Candy Man
• Serpent Of Dreams
• Day To Day Out the Window Blues
• I’m Talking About You (Chuck Berry)
• Wolves and Lambs
• Walkin’ Blues
• Good Shepherd
• Sleep Song
• Baby What You Want Me To Do
• In the Kingdom
• Hit single #1
• Funky #7
• Water Song (encore)

But the playing was superlative.  The peak of the night was probably Walkin’ Blues, which Jorma killed on vocals, followed by Good Shepherd with Jack making the whole Wilbur resonate to his beat.  I was hoping for Come Back Baby, but they ended too soon and then encored with an incredible electric Water Song.  Jack was not to be stopped that night.