Phil & Friends In a Summer Storm

We were delighted to hear that Phil Lesh was going to be playing in Boston on July 21st.  He hadn't played anywhere in town since Bobby & Phil in 2018, and before that since playing the Bank Of Boston Pavilion with Furthur in 2013!  And this time he was playing the same venue, though it's now called the Leader Bank Pavilion.

I've had mixed experiences at the waterfront pavilion in Boston, but I've enjoyed it immensely the last few times, because if you have good seats some of the negative aspects are mitigated.  And we got good seats again, this time almost exactly one row in front of where we'd sat for JRAD last year.  One funky thing about our seats though, under our feet was a channel carrying power to the soundboard, capped with a metal grill.  We weren't too worried about it at first...

Dave was over and we ate at home, and then drove down to the Seaport, where we parked in an underground garage and moseyed on in.  As mentioned, it's been a very rainy Summer, but the weather was looking great at that point, and we had a fun time hanging out next to the low-tide harbor with some new friends before the show.  Got to our seats but as often happens on Friday nights, the crowd was very late-arriving and the band didn't come on for a while.

Phil's band didn't have any great surprises this time, including the core of Grahame Lesh on rhythm and John Molo on drums.  Frequent keyboardist Jason Crosby was also there, recent contributors Jennifer Hartswick and James Casey were on board to handle the horns and the superlative vocals, and Eric Krasno was on lead guitar.  I'd seen Krasno with Soulive, opening for TTB in 2014 at Boston's House Of Blues, but never seen him with Phil.

We were psyched!  Here's the first set:

• The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)
• Brown-Eyed Women
• Candyman
• He's Gone
• That's What Love Will Make You Do
• Althea

What an opener, and what a lead from Grahame on it, they were crackling with electricity, which as it turns out was the theme of the evening.  This was followed by an excellent BEW and then a very trippy and heartfelt Candyman.  Very good sound and some excellent playing, though Crosby was not as involved as we've seen him, except for when he soloed.  Krasno was not a plus on guitar, though he had a few good vocal turns, especially his timing on BEW.

They did a very good He's Gone, though we missed Natalie Cressman on that, and then it was Jen's turn to shine.  She'd already contributed a mind-bending trumpet solo on BEW, but she was just getting started.  Our new friends mentioned that they'd done a couple of JGB songs in soundcheck ... Eric started off the first verse of What Love Will Make You Do, and then traded a few lines with Jen, and then she took it over and left Eric in the dust.  She belted out that vocal with the amazing power and surprising intimacy we've come to expect from her and she had the crowd on their feet!  This alone was more than worth the price of admission.

They finished the short set with another repeat from DeadCo earlier this Summer, this one not as noteworthy.  And we should have suspected that something was up by the way they cut that set short and then came back out after just a 15-minute or so intermission.  Here's the second set:

• Jack Straw
• Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo
• Eyes of the World
• Terrapin Station

Jack Straw was fantastic, and Phil took the "Jack Straw" lead part to reply to Eric's "Shannon."  Phil was really playing and singing at his best.  This was my 50th time (by my count) seeing Phil, and he was as good as ever.  As with other times, he grabbed my attention and I was concentrating on him all night.  He's somehow gotten very old and was moving slowly, but he was on his game and though he's seemingly granted the bandleader role to his son, he doesn't show any sign of coasting.  He's playing that music and we're there to hear it.  As mentioned, the Friday night crowd was very rowdy, though very Deadicated (everyone there was a fan, not like it had been at Fenway for DeadCo), and we all gave numerous ovations to Phil.  The band had had to interrupt our loudest ovation with The Golden Road!

Great Half-Step, one of my favorite songs, and then it was James's turn.  He may have been a little under the weather (no pun intended), and was not very involved with the first set and retreated to the wings or sat for several numbers.  But he'd turned in a great sax solo on Half-Step and then took the vocal on Eyes, to great affect!  He sometimes sings like he hasn't really read the song all the way through, he's just singing what's on the teleprompter and emoting based on the few words he sees.  But with this he gave us a whole-song performance.

We knew that there thunderstorms and (I think) some tornados in Eastern Mass that evening, but thought we had lucked out and missed them.  Then during the short set break it started raining, and by the time we got into Eyes it was absolutely pouring.  We were under a big tent, but the wind picked up and the thunder and lightning got closer and louder and brighter by the second.  We were starting to worry about the electrical conduit under our feet.  Was this really safe?  The wind was whipping and we got hit with some moisture from the Biblical sheets of rain, though we were in the center of the tent.  We began to worry that the equipment in the soundboard enclosure right next to us was getting wet, and it looked like some of the guys on stage were getting wetter than they'd like.

The band launched into a great Terrapin and we were rocking again, though we were getting more and more concerned while the water just poured down outside the tent.  And then the venue crew called off the concert.  Phil seemed heartbroken and apologized to the crowd while they tried to hustle him offstage.  What a bummer!

The venue put the message up on their video boards and on their FB page that we should shelter in place, and everybody was fine hanging out under the tent.  We didn't want to go out into that storm.  But then finally the venue changed their messages to "we are closing, leave now!"  Most people still didn't budge, but we saw that there was a small break in the rain and so we left, and got drenched on our way back to the car.

Some confusion getting out of the garage and before we knew it we were on the Turnpike heading West.  The storm returned in full force, complete with thunder and lightning, and we were sure there was going to be street flooding, so we stayed on the highway and slowly made our way out to 128 and then back around to home.  Quite a stressful drive and we were a little depressed about the show having been cut short.  But what a show it had been, and we made it home safely.

TTB On the Bangor Waterfront

We've seen the Tedeschi Trucks Band many times and just love them.  They're unquestionably one of the best bands in the world and keep playing in new places.  We saw them in Waterville ME in April last year, and this year they were up in Maine again, playing the waterfront pavilion in Bangor on July 5 with Ziggy Marley opening.  Didn't take much for us to get tickets as soon as we could, and we got great seats in the 11th row, dead center.

An incredible stretch of rain swamped mid-coast Maine in June and continued into July, but cleared up right in time for the concert.  L went with us when David couldn't make it, and she had a good time, though she found it kind of loud, especially when Derek would turn up the volume.  It was a sunny drive up route 15 to get there, parked in the Pickering Square Garage on Broad Street, and then had a nice walk down the river, pausing for an early dinner of sandwiches and chips on a bench by some old cannons.

They wouldn't let us bring our plastic water bottles into the venue, even empty, but there was no line to get in and everybody was smiling.  And wow, have they re-done the venue since the last time we were there, in 2019 for the Willie Tour.  Back then it seemed like an amphitheater cobbled together in front of a big stage.  This time they still had the big stage, but had enclosed the seating area with nice, wood pavilions hosting luxury boxes up top and new bathrooms down below (it had been all porta-potties before).  The "lawn" had been a patch of dirt before, but now was lovely green turf.  The concessions seemed better laid out, Dave had had to wait in line 45 minutes the last time!

They had a VIP pavilion and a lounge area for us regular people.  And they were selling excellent beer, I got a Baxter Coastal Storm from the stand up in front where nobody else was going.  Funny that they didn't have the whole pavilion open though, the third section of seats and the lawn were empty and closed off, though they had apparently sold out the first two sections.  Must be supply chain difficulties.

Anyway, got to our great seats and it wasn't long before Ziggy Marley came on with a ten-piece band and played a great set.  He had a drummer and a percussionist, two electric guitarists, a bassist, two keyboard players, two backup singers, and he alternated between an electric in gaudy Jamaican colors and an acoustic.  He's Bob Marley's son and stuck to the reggae, though he's done a lot of children's music over his pretty long career.  Here's his setlist:

• Rebellion Rises
• Beach in Hawaii
• The Lucky One
• Be Free
• Personal Revolution
• Wild and Free
• Circle of Peace
• See Dem Fake Leaders
• Justice / Get Up, Stand Up / War
• We Are the People
• Love Is My Religion
• Is This Love
• Look Who's Dancing

It was a nice, long set, and the band was really excellent.  His backup singers, in Jamaican colors themselves, had some great dance moves, some smooth harmonies, and some great rap breaks.  The lead guitarist stood out for me, and they did the accomplished thing of making it seem like Ziggy was the one strumming the reggae beat through most of the songs, but it was actually the other guitarist, who was the funkiest one on stage.  Ziggy (and his impossibly long dreadlocks, they're down to his knees) concentrated on the vocals and was excellent himself.  It was all his songs with a few by his father mixed in.  I especially liked Wild and Free and the closing Look Who's Dancing.

I knew it was going to take a while to take down their set and to set up TTB, with their two drummers, risers for the vocalists and horn players, etc.  But they've been on tour together for a while and did this incredibly efficiently.  There had been room for dancing in our seats during the opening set, but the crowd (including customers of L's) filled in and the front two sections were packed ... I saw no empty seats.  Susan and Derek came out to wild applause, by now the fact that they are the band to see is out far and wide.

OMG, this was fantastic!  It was possibly the best TTB concert I've seen, and I've seen a lot of them.  Our seats were excellent and the sound was highest quality, though perhaps a little too trebly up front where we were.  All of the qualities that make this such a great band were there, and they played a long, long set:

• Hear My Dear
• Ain't That Something
• I Am the Moon
• Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)
• Part of Me
• Bell Bottom Blues
• Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?
• Anyhow
• I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free
• Do I Look Worried
• Midnight in Harlem
• Gravity
• Angel From Montgomery / Sugaree
• That Did It
• I Want More
• Beck's Bolero

This was a great mix of their own songs, opening with the exceptional Hear My Dear from their latest record.  They played two Derek and the Dominoes songs in succession, and some of the amazing blues covers they pick up, including the Stones' Heartbreaker and the closing instrumental from Jeff Beck.

At one point Susan forgot the words to the song she was singing (I forget which one).  Derek looked anxious and tried to prompt her with hand signals, which made her laugh.  But I swear it was less than 30 seconds before a roadie had printed out the words and laid them next to Susan's mike.  What efficiency!  She resumed.  On several songs, Susan switched from her normal teal guitar to a blonde Les Paul, which sounded excellent.

Perhaps the song of the set was Billy Taylor's revered I Wish I Knew, opened by Mike Mattison up front, and then batted around between Susan and the other vocalists.  The intro to Midnight In Harlem wasn't the one we've come to expect.  It went way into outer space, but you could tell what it was leading up to, and that song is so mellow, soulful, and lyrical when they get there.

I have to mention Alicia Chakour, who was as subtly powerful as ever.  And the musician of the night was ... no surprise ... Derek Trucks, who is one of the best and most consistent guitarists I've ever seen.  And as I've mentioned other times I've seen them, he conducts the band so well with little nods of his head, turns of his body, and movements of his eyes.  Susan can do this too, at one time she and Gabe were holding  a note together and without being obvious, he had his eye on her.  She had her eye on him too, and on a quick cut with her hand they transitioned seamlessly into the chorus.

And the set list was even more adventurous that you might think, because they mixed in a few bring-down-the-house horn breaks.  Not only did Kebbie Williams get his thing on, but Ephraim Owens took a great early break on trumpet, and near the end of the set Elizabeth Lea got out her mute and the three of them traded bars back and forth.  Great stuff!

I think the band may have been a little mixed up about where they were, understandable in the middle of a long tour.  There was a shoutout to "Boston Mass" somewhere in the middle, and at the end I swear Susan said that they always loved playing in Massachusetts.  Oh well.  They came back out after a long stretch of whoops and hollers and encored with Show Me.  As I say, it was a long, long set.  We all had a great time, we could have been in Oklahoma.

Not too much problem getting out of there and walking the quarter-mile or so back to the parking garage.  And believe it or not the traffic died out quickly and the roads were deserted almost all the way home.  Not like seeing a concert in the big city!