Dead & Company Final Tour, Fenway part 2

The Saturday concert had been so good, and we wondered what surprises were in store for us on Sunday.  Samson and Delilah for sure, but besides that most of our predictions were incorrect.  But whatever, that was fine with us!

The big topic was how and when we were going to get in to Fenway.  As bad as our crowd experience had been, we knew that it would be even worse if we didn't head in there sooner rather than later, and we decided to brave Yard House once more.  Couldn't be as noisy and crowded as yesterday, huh?

We parked in the same garage on Ross Way and were about to get to the restaurant, where Andrew (who hadn't been at Saturday's show) was already waiting.  But who were those two hippies right in front of us?  It was Paul and Diane!  They're some of our Green River Festival friends and had been there for Friday and Saturday, but had just arrived back in Boston for the DeadCo show.  What serendipity, this was amazing!

We got a big, relatively quiet table, and all six of us had a great meal, with some fine beers, salads, and conversation.  Time to head in and we broke up with them to find our way in.  Amazingly, the merch stand outside had no line and we were able to pick up a few t-shirts and sweatshirts, which we dumped back at the car.  Then we walked all the way down Van Ness to the bleacher entrance and hooked back around up to our right-field grandstand seats, under the overhang and not far from where we'd sat for the Thanksgiving Woburn-Winchester game in 2021.  Luckily the evening sun didn't quite shine in our eyes, and the sight lines were almost as good as they had been the night before, though the sound was understandably not quite as good.

We were able to hit the bathrooms and beer line before it got too crazy, and then make it back to our seats.  But the talkers and pot chain-smokers were again ubiquitous!  Two guys behind us in the second set were engaged in a long conversation and during Drums one of them (a loud talker) commented that this was what he'd come for.  I whirled around and said, "Excuse me, I have to interrupt.  If you came for Drums how come you're not listening to it?"  He got the point and quieted down a bit.

Anyway, this was another excellent concert, perhaps not as dynamic as Saturday's had been.

• Samson and Delilah
• Cold Rain and Snow
• Jack Straw
• Althea
• Comes a Time
• Mr. Charlie
• He's Gone
• Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad

I just love CR&S, and the timeless Jack Straw was another magical first set song, setting the tone for another great Summer.  Comes a Time was a surprise ... tour debut ... and Oteil was in excellent voice on it.  John took the blues intensity up with Mr. Charlie, and the whole band took it ever farther up with great ensemble singing on He's Gone.  And then GDTRFB was a rocking sing-along for all of Fenway.  What fun!

Longer set break than Saturday, but we stayed in our seats.  We knew that just getting to the bathroom would be insane, and getting back would be even worse.  And no way we were going to brave the beer lines.  We'd gotten some outrageously priced bottles of water when we got beer before the first set, and these helped us get through.  We were up and dancing for most of the show of course, but by the end of the night we were getting pretty exhausted.  Anyway, time for the second set, where the dragons come out.

• They Love Each Other
• Playing In the Band
• Help On the Way
• Slipknot!
• Fire On the Mountain
• Drums
• Space
• Playing In the Band
• The Other One
• Standing On the Moon
• Not Fade Away

More individual excellence and more tight, accomplished takes on these songs.  They reprised PITB after another mind-bending Space segment and then went into a dark and meaty reprise of TOO, finally finishing up the second verse.  Sarah loves SOTM and this was a great cover with Bob singing as well as ever.

It's in their contract that they have to throw NFA to the crowds so they can chant endlessly, but this was luckily a short and sweet one and the band came back out for an encore before things really got out of hand.  They had meant to encore with The Weight Saturday night before getting distracted by the dark star on the big river, but they did it Sunday night (with Jeff taking a verse of course), and then finished off with Ripple.

Geez, will I ever see these guys again?  Probably not in that configuration at least, though I knew I'd be seeing more streams of this tour.  But it was sad to have them leave Fenway ... wait a minute, will I ever be inside Fenway again?  Probably, but again, nothing is forever.

Anyway, we were close to our limit with the scene.  Successfully exited out the bleacher entrance but then knew that it would take hours to get all the way up Van Ness, so we detoured around up Boylston, which was pretty packed too.  Made it back to the garage, but the luck we'd had with lights on Saturday didn't hold, dentists were dashing across the street with balloons, and we were delayed forever just exiting up to Storrow.  And when we made it to 93 North, there were three lanes closed and it took forever just to get up to Roosevelt Circle, where we opted for cross-country back home.

But what a weekend it had been!  We've been blessed by Dead & Company, and we've taken the opportunities we could to go see them live.  It's been worth every second. 

Dead & Company Final Tour, Fenway part 1

We've been blessed to have one of the finest bands ever, Dead & Company, touring for the last few years and visiting New England frequently.  But nothing is forever, especially bands.  Original Dead drummer, Bill Kreutzmann, has had to sit out stretches of their last couple of tours and announced early that he wouldn't be on this one at all.  Bob Weir's other band, Wolf Bros (which includes Kreutzmann's replacement, Jay Lane, and sometimes keyboardist Jeff Chimenti), has been taking a lot of his time, and the other members of the band, especially John Mayer, have many irons in the fire themselves.

Probably for these and other reasons, Dead & Company announced that their Summer 2023 tour would be their last, and more than the usual frenzy for tickets ensued.  There are rumors that actually the "end" of this band is mostly motivated by contractual issues, and that a "next Dead band" will appear soon under a different name.  We'll see about that, I hope so.

In any event, the last gasp of this band has been riveting.  We'd managed to stream about half the shows on the tour in advance of their June 24th and 25th appearances in Fenway Park.  And we'd been very impressed.  Not to knock Kreutzmann at all, but their rhythm was key to the band approaching another level from their last few tours.  The adventure they brought to GD music had increased steadily with each tour, but this time around they seemed a little more crisp and assured in addition to that.  Being their last tour probably helped also, they seemed more ready to push the envelope and try new things.

And Mayer and Chimenti have been playing flawlessly.  I remember Garcia taking over entire theaters with his guitar playing, and Mayer has been reaching that level.  He starts into a lead on his blues guitar (that he's been been playing almost all the time) and your whole soul just follows along with him.  Then Jeff takes a lead and you trust him to take you to a higher place.  Bobby had been showing some wear and tear in his voice lately, but his guitar playing was as right on as ever ... he's been mostly sticking to his green D'Angelico.  And the bottom end has been remarkable (again, not knocking Kreutzmann), filled with drum pyrotechnics and fast bass passages.

Dave had gotten tickets to the shows at Citi Field (New York) preceding the Boston shows, but decided that the physical and psychological cost of going down there was probably not worth it.  We agreed, we shuddered a bit at the thought of the intense crowd scenes and all that goes along with them.  But we'd be damned before we'd skip the Fenway shows (even though this meant missing the Green River Festival this year!), and we lined up online for tickets to them.  Even this was an intense hassle but we got seats to both shows and got very psyched for them.

Dave was over for the weekend and we headed into the Fens early on the 24th, hoping that the incredible rains of this late Spring/early Summer would hold off.  We got a table at oppressively noisy and crowded Yard House.  Can't believe that our waitress could put up with that level of noise for her whole shift.  We had to shout in her ear to place our orders.  But we like the beer and food there, it's very conveniently located, and we didn't have to wait for a table for that long.

Off to the ballpark after that and we managed to find our way to our pretty good seats in a box just to the left of the visitor dugout, five or so rows from the field.  I considered getting a beer, but the lines were long and the crowd was oppressive with people clogging the aisles and wandering around in dazes.  It looked worse out on the field, especially when they wheeled out a stretcher for a medical emergency and closed off one of the pressure valves holding those fans in.  Anyway, we were ready for the madness and pretty much stuck to our seats.

Another thing we were prepared for but exceeded our expectations was talking in the crowd.  Some people carried on conversations throughout the whole concert, like they were sitting (stoned) in their living rooms.  The guy to my right had done lighting at Fenway and so got a lot of tickets for friends.  Most of them were Deadicated concert goers like him and were there to listen.  But some weren't.  One couple in particular shoved their way up to talk to him and kept on talking, with their backs to the band.  I finally asked them to keep it down and the friend was outraged at that.  He and his partner left in a huff and soon after that the guy to my right touched my shoulder.  When I turned around he and his girlfriend offered me a handshake and a fist-bump, smiled, and said thanks for that.  They were there to listen, not to talk!

And some people were there to smoke pot, and smoke more pot, and keep on smoking pot.  I'm used to clouds of smoke at concerts, but this was extreme, especially the couple who sat in front of us for the second set and smoked doobie after doobie of ditchweed, like they'd better smoke as much as they could before they had to leave. We were choking from the smell ... hadn't they heard of edibles?

Anyway, just trying to set the bad part of the scene.  The good part of the scene was fantastic!  The rain held off and we even got some blue sky and brilliant sunshine reflecting off the right field stands.  Our sight lines were pretty good, being a few rows up we could see all of the stage very well.  And the sound was as great as you'd expect from such an experienced band.  They were scheduled to start at 6:30 and came on late (supposedly, John, Oteil, and Jeff were stuck in traffic and had to get out of the limo and run).  Here's the first set:

• Cassidy
• Brown-Eyed Women
• I Need a Miracle
• Here Comes Sunshine
• Tennessee Jed
• China Doll
• Viola Lee Blues
• The Music Never Stopped

Even to critics like us, who had seen much of the tour and were even pickier because of that, this just bowled us over.  Bobby's voice was not shaky at all, it was as strong as ever.  They were so tight and well-rehearsed and the sound was so good.  And they brought that extra panache we'd noticed with this tour, ready to jam and be experimental, but doing it as a group rather than a bunch of individuals.

And the experience was beautiful, I almost forgot about all the madness.  Seagulls whirled above Fenway in the slowly setting sun as they sang about the flight of the seabirds.  We'd predicted that they'd play Here Comes Sunshine, and we'd recently heard covers of that song by Phil's bands that we considered hard to equal, but this was just as magical an experience, if not better.  We were outside, the rain was holding off, and the early evening summer sun was streaking through the venerable ballpark, while on stage John and Bobby and Oteil and Jeff (who's vocal contributions were key) sang their hearts out.

Wow, that was great.  The bathroom was not that far away,  but the beer lines were still impossible and I fled back to my seat while the rock crowd in Fenway whirled around us.  I knew I would be going back there the next night, but my future plans do not include many concerts at Fenway!

Anyway, it was an unusually short set break and then the guys came back out and wowed us some more.

• New Speedway Boogie
• Dark Star
• The Other One
• Terrapin Station
• Drums
• Space
• Dark Star On the Big River
• Black Peter
• Casey Jones
• One More Saturday Night

This was a mind-bending set!  We were hoping for a Dark Star and boy did we get one.  They went far out there, but this was a solid, booming outer space experience, and they kept teasing TOO and then went into it, one of Dave's and my favorite songs.  And then they held up after the first verse and shifted gear smoothly into Terrapin.  Excellent stuff.

Oteil had been doing a duet with Mickey at the beginning of some Drums segments on the tour, but this night they went right onto the meat of Drums, and then Mickey had an extended time on The Beam.  He took it way down low and got Fenway shaking while the lights played over the press box.  Dave thinks he actually saw him lick The Beam, as he sometimes does in the throes of ecstasy.

And then something totally unexpected happened.  We were thinking that they'd go back into TOO and/or back into Dark Star, both of which had only been the first verses.  But were they going to break into Big River?  Were they going to go back into Space?  What was happening?  Oteil and John found a groove and Bobby and Jeff jumped right in and they followed that groove down the rabbit hole and back out and we all were suddenly parsecs away.  In the band's later notes they scribbled a name for this jam, "Dark Star On the Big River."  And that's what it was.  You have to hear this.

Bobby always sings me Black Peter, and this one was fine.  And Casey Jones is a little overplayed, but this was such an excellent one!  John's vocal lead was great, and Oteil was a monster, hopping around the stage and playing a loud, strong, inventive bass line.

The finished with OMSN, being Saturday, and then waved goodbye.  No encore tonight, as it was already pretty late and they were pressing up against Fenway's curfew.

We had to wait a bit before the lines out started moving and sat quietly in our seats while others clambered over us.  The couple in front of us had been some of the first to "leave," though they had to be staggering after power-smoking ditchweed all night.  Finally the crowd started moving and we made it out to Jersey Street, where we found ourselves in another crowd, pushing out to Van Ness and beyond, barely able to take steps without trampling each other.  Finally made it back to our parking garage, got some good luck with lights down Boylston, and then were on the road back home.

What a horror show but what a great concert!

Iris Dement at City Winery

By the time we saw that Iris Dement was playing at City Winery, the front of the room was sold already.  But we got acceptable tickets about a third of the way back in that long, long room and were psyched.

Iris has recently released another staggering record, Workin' On a World, her second release since her last staggering record, Sing the Delta, which was released in 2012.  Iris is so self-effacing, you have to think there must be a little humor in it.  She says her husband (Greg Brown) is retired but still writes and sings songs around the house.  She was doing the same thing and realized she might as well stop by the studio once in a while and record some stuff, since who knew when she was going to die (this is her sense of humor)?

She told us that she wrote the song, Workin' On a World, in November 2016 as a way of dealing with depression about the state of the world (she cited a quote I can't place, something like, "you must carve a path through the jungle of despair").  She said writing the song really helped her and she hoped it helped us.  Well, that song sure does help, and there was a room full of people who would agree.  And you should hear the rest of her album too, which gets very political and very personal.  As I say, it's a staggering artistic achievement.

So anyway, we were eager to hear her sing songs from it, and they had City Winery's excellent grand piano out waiting for her when we arrived after meeting our friend L for dinner at Tavern In the Square.  They also had a couple of mikes set up, and Ana Egge came out right at 7:00 for the opening act.

City Winery has lots of drawbacks as a music venue, the main one being it's so crowded and busy with food and drink at small tables.  But Ana was not phased by the noise and played a great set.  She had a wonderful sounding steel-stringed guitar and has written some nice songs.  Perhaps the highlight of her set though, was her cover of Dolly Parton's Wildflowers.  And Ana wasn't afraid to reach for the high notes.

After a short break, Iris came on with her guitar with an accompanist, Elizabeth something, on bass (which sounded great, but looked like it might have had a little viola in its ancestry).  I've seen perhaps more non-professionally paced concerts (Grateful Dead?) than I have professionally-paced ones (Asleep At the Wheel?), but Iris can sometimes take "pace" to another level.  She dithers about whether she should stay on guitar or switch to the piano, or back again.  And her monologues that start off directed to the audience often become conversations with herself that don't really have a point.  But this is all great, and we know that after she settles down she'll start back into one of those excellent songs. 

Can't remember the setlist exactly, but she started with a few early songs, then switched to her recent songs, introduced by Workin' On a World.  She did Morning Glory, Let Me Be Your Jesus, Sing the Delta, Warriors Of Love, The Cherry Orchard, and several other tunes, showcasing her strong piano playing and her vocal range.  Elizabeth was excellent on bass and took a few solos, though they perhaps had her mixed a little high.

Egge came back out for a few numbers with her ringing lead guitar, including a great version of Iris's Mama's Opry, in which Ana took the Mama lines.  The funny thing is that Elizabeth is a bit short and Ana is very tall, so they had to make major adjustments to the mike stand when swapping, while trying to look cool.

Over too soon ... but they came back out for an encore.  How about Iris on guitar singing Let the Mystery Be and then Our Town?  Can't get much better than that.  She didn't sing Down To Sing In Texas, which is what we were all waiting for.  But perhaps we're a little too concerned in NE about songs and art pushing the boundaries.  She was great and we all had a great time, and perhaps we had a better time in hearing her technical songs versus her heart-on-a-sleeve ones.  Perhaps.

Got back to the car without a trip to the dispensary, and then an adventurous ride back up North on 93, skirting road work.  So glad to see Iris!