As some of you know, we've been having a pandemic and that's put the kibosh on a lot of shows. We'd hoped to see Phil Lesh and Friends at the Cap in Port Chester for his 80th birthday back in March 2020. But that and then any hope of his doing a Halloween run there vanished. Again in March 2021, the pandemic was still raging (though vaccines were becoming available) and there was no show. At last he announced, back in the later Spring when an end to the pandemic seemed possible, that he'd be playing three sets of three shows each over two weeks in October!
We strategized and settled on going down there for the middle set of three, for which there was the usual mad ticket rush, but for which we snagged center balcony seats. They eventually announced who'd be with him for the three sets and we mentally high-fived our decision. The first set would be "The Q," whom we'd seen with him and liked but weren't our ideal band. The second set would be his son Grahame, Benmont Tench, Amy Helm/Eliot Peck alternating, Joe F. Russo(!), Stuart Bogie on woodwinds, and the pair of Eric D. Johnson and Josh Kaufman, whom we'd seen with Bonnie Light Horseman at the Green River Festival. The third set is going to be basically Dawes, Nicki Bluhm, and Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams ... a mixed bag because Dawes (Taylor Goldsmith et al.) doesn't seem entirely to click with him from what we've heard, but we'd love to see the latter three again.
Anyway, excitement built and the pandemic kept hanging on because of stupidity and misinformation, as well as epidemiology. Not my role to explain the 21st century here, thank dog, but we might have cancelled out except for the fact that they announced proof of vaccination would be required at the Cap. We decided to take the risk, though I had what might have been the virus in the week before it, thankfully in time to get a negative test. Dreamflower was going to join us but had to cancel out because of a virus scare in her family, but we were lucky enough to find Twitter friends of Dave's for the Tuesday and Wednesday tickets.
Another twist was that the hotel we've settled on for Port Chester excursions, the La Quinta in Armonk NY, has apparently closed!?! We looked around and found relatively good prices at a Days Inn in Elmsford NY, though that proved to be a bad decision.
OK, enough background? Dave drove up on Sunday and we packed up and headed Southwest around 1PM on a beautiful Fall Monday, October 18th. Dave was driving and I was napping until we got to Connecticut. Traffic was manic but quick, until we got to Waterville, where it backed up due to major construction. We took route 8 South at that point and switched over to the Merritt Parkway, the Hutchinson River Parkway in NY, and then the Cross-Westchester Expressway to Elmsford, which slowed to a crawl as we approached the Tappan Zee bridge.
Friendly people with masks at the Days Inn when we got there, and they had decent coffee in the lobby. But there was not much else good about it. They seemed to be in the business of housing people doing construction on the roads around there, and they all got up and went to work (noisily) early. And there was no soap in the bathroom!?! We asked at the desk and were told that it was a supply chain problem, they had more on order. WTF?? Why didn't they take the responsibility of going to the local store and spending some petty cash to get bar soap for their guests? There were also no chairs in the room!?! Sarah eventually asked why there weren't any and was told that there was at least a desk chair. She said no there wasn't. So they brought one up. The curtains wouldn't close unless we rigged up a hanger to pinch them shut. Oh well, at least there was a working mini-fridge and we were able to convince the heater to pump up the temperature a bit.
So we arranged our stuff for a three-night stay and hung out a bit. Then jumped in the car and boogied down 287 to Port Chester, where we parked behind our favorite local Mexican restaurant, Kiosko, and went in to eat. We were about the only ones there when we arrived and they were kind of surprised at having to deal with people who didn't speak Spanish. Smiles all around however and we got another great meal that couldn't be beat, and then trundled down Westchester Ave. to the Cap about a half hour before showtime.
No lines for vaxx proof and admittance, and we were back! The merch table had a couple of great shirts (and a lot of so-so ones) but they didn't have any in the right sizes, except for one Sarah got. Supply chain problems I suppose. Went up to our seats in the balcony, got a beer, and settled down while the crowd streamed in. None of the three shows we saw were totally sold out, though the balcony was about three quarters full and I'm sure the floor was packed.
Then Phil F. Lesh and the guys came out, tuned up, and got at it. From left to right they were Tench, Grahame, Johnson, Amy Helm (who was not out for the first song), Joe in the back on a small kit, Phil, Kaufman, and then Bogie way over on the right with a pile of woodwinds. Besides Bogie there wasn't much switching of instruments. Grahame stuck to his big Rickenbacker for the whole set and Phil to his Modulus of course. Amy only played the mandolin on Atlantic City and besides that stuck to vocals. Here's the first set:
- Althea
- Alice D. Millionaire
- Crazy Fingers
- Greatest Story Ever Told
- Atlantic City
- Deal
- Brokedown Palace
We were delighted! The most significant person on stage was the old man, and I'm pleased to report that Phil was playing as well as ever, with the depth, power, delicacy, nimbleness, and variety of tone I've been listening to for years. There were some problems with the sound to my ear, which were partly fixed by the end of first set. The sounded a little muddy but became crisper as the set went along. Unfortunately, we still had a hard time hearing Tench when he played the piano (as opposed to the organ) and to Bogie when we was on the sax, though his clarinet and flute were mixed well.
From the beginning, Grahame Lesh was a monster. It's so great to hear him come out of the shadow of his legacy. And this time he not only took the role of bandleader/cat herder most of the time (except when his father scowled), as he had when we'd seen him before, but he also showed some serious chops on guitar, ripping off some long, excellent leads and filling in with some fantastic "Bobby" stuff when it was needed.
Amy was singing as well as ever and had no problem meshing with Grahame and Phil like she'd been playing with them for years (in fact, she has). And Joe Russo is never *not* in the running for best musician on whatever stage he's on, though his trap set was limited and he barely sang at all.
The guys from Bonny Light Horseman were not a great addition however. Eric D. Johnson definitely has a good harmony voice and there were some periods of magic with Grahame, Amy, and him. But they had him do too many vocal leads, most of which he did not excel on, and he contributed next to nothing on guitar. Kaufman definitely had his moments. He brought the space and played some extraordinary leads, including some great pairings with Grahame. But he was a bit confused by some of the arrangements and was not always a solid contributor. Bogie also had some great moments, but had to pick his spots ... and the right instrument. In all, these guys were not tight and perhaps showed the perils of Phil's "Friends" approach. A very different approach than Dead & Company or JRAD, to name a couple of well-rehearsed bands.
But anyway, as I say, we were delighted! LSD Millionaire was such a treat, and Amy killed it, as she did to Atlantic City. Crazy Fingers was a great Grahame vocal, and Brokedown featured some of that great harmony I mentioned.
Wow, the first of the six Phil sets we had waited to see for months was over, but we'd seen and heard enough already to make us forget the hassles and expense of going down there. Time to hit the funky old Capitol Theatre bathrooms and to get another beer for the second set. They had some nice patterns on the walls as always, but we were a little disappointed that they weren't playing one of the old-time film reels they have, varying the wallpaper, or light-painting the ceiling. Oh well, it was a mellow environment as it often is at the Cap, and soon it was time for the second set:
- China Cat Sunflower
- I Know You Rider
- The Wheel
- New Potato Caboose
- The Stranger (Two Souls in Communion)
- Wharf Rat
- Box of Rain
- Sugar Magnolia
OMG, this was more like it, and more! Grahame started us off with a great intro to China Cat and followed up with a great Rider (though this wasn't as good as the one we saw DeadCo do this summer). The Wheel was good, but Johnson was starting to grate a bit. But then they started up the next song and Dave grabbed me. He's never heard New Potato live and had been complaining that he'd miss it again since Phil had done it with the Q a few nights before. But here it was in all its glory, with Phil dropping the bombs and Grahame singing the psychedelic lyrics like a folk song.
And then it was my turn to grab him. I couldn't believe what they were playing at first, and then realized that I was about to hear the song I thought I'd never hear a Dead band play live, Two Souls In Communion. Back in the day, this was only available on scratchy bootlegs, but I and all my friends who heard it were enthralled by the soul, funk, and humanity Pigpen brought to it. Amy sang it, and boy, did she get it right. She's got the perfect voice for it, and the Cap stood still while she shouted at the top of her lungs, "I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm not made out of stone!"
This was followed by what could have been a great Wharf Rat if the band had played together for another ten years or so. But then Phil sang Box Of Rain and Grahame sang Sugar Magnolia and everything was right with the world. Two of the best songs from American Beauty done perfectly and back to back!
Wow, time to slump back into the seat and try to recap what we'd just seen. Phil came out soon (he had his own route through the amps marked with tape, don't want the old man to stumble) and gave us the donor rap. He ended this one (as he also did the next two nights) by saying, "I'm glad everyone in the house is vaccinated, and if you know anyone who isn't, tell them to get the fucking vaccine!!!" And he had more music left.
This was a great encore. They did "The Band" arrangements for some of their songs because of Amy's presence, and they did a great rollicking Ophelia like her Dad used to do it. And they followed this up with another beauty from Beauty, a crackerjack, rock 'n' roll version of Ripple. None of this slow dreamy stuff ... "There is a road, no simple highway," and we were cruising down it.
Woohoo! First of three nights in the books and it had been a good one. Not a long walk back to the parking lot (which has apparently been adopted by a lot of concert goers), and then not much traffic back to Elmsford, where we still didn't have any soap. Oh well, Dave had brought some luckily, and there was shampoo. Got to bed a bit before 1:00.
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