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.
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