Grahame Lesh and Friends at the Cap, night 3

Got a good night's sleep in finally, but then the usual mosh pit for breakfast.  As I say, there were many Deadheads at the Hyatt House that weekend, more so than any other hotel we'd stayed at.  Everyone we talked to agreed that the shows had been fantastic so far, and that Bob Weir should show up on Sunday the 16th.

This show was going to be a very different band, Steve Molitz on keys, the dynamic duo of Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams, Jackie Green, and Molo and Lesh.  They also promised special guests, and of course everyone's expectations were high.

After breakfast we played another couple of games in our room, went for a walk around parts of the West Harrison oval we hadn't poked into before, and then ate sandwiches.  Time for a big game of Parks downstairs, and then back up to the room for a group nap and a little TV before heading out to Port Chester.  The weather still wasn't sunny to any degree, but at least we weren't in a huge fog bank.  And Kiosko was as good as ever.  This night they presented us with free desserts, which were delicious.  We really like that place, and they seem to like us.  But who knows when or if we'll be back there?

Up to our fine center balcony seats again, and the band came on a little after 8:00.  We were delighted that Karl Denson was there (on sax, flute, percussion, and vocals) at far right, along with a to-be-filled guitar setup to his left, and Adam McDougall sharing the keyboards with Molitz.  Those two made some great sounds together.  Brian Rashap was again on Big Brown.  Here's the first set:

• China Cat Sunflower
• Deep Elem Blues
• Here Comes Sunshine
• Sitting on Top of the World
• Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning
• Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo
• Sugaree

I really like Jackie Green's voice, and he started us off with a nice vocal on China Cat.  And with the next few songs they sure took advantage of having the great Campbell and Williams.  Larry was playing a sick rockabilly Telecaster and standing still in precise "musician" posture as always, though his sound was so infectious.  Deep Elem was a perfect song for everybody to get to know each other, and then Teresa took over with Here Comes Sunshine; she was not about to brook any argument.  Another great part of this song was Denson's ethereal flute.

Sitting On Top of the World was another great guitar workup, and then it was Teresa's turn again and we could see her getting herself psyched.  To any one there who wasn't familiar with Teresa or felt that no one could equal the female vocalists of the first two nights, hold onto your hats.  She wailed out Lamps at the top of her voice, shrieking and howling and bringing out the primal force of the song.

Somewhere in there (the flow of guests was sometimes sudden), Rashap retired backstage and Grahame took over at bass.  He can play it, but he's a guitar player, not a bass player.  Later, Adam Minkoff took over and he's a fine player, he used to play bass in Amy Helm's band.  And then another great special guest appeared, Tom Hamilton at the guitar setup next to Denson.  Tommie sang a lovely little Mississippi Half-Step on which he conducted the crowd on the "Cross the Grand Rio" bridge.  But as always, he was bursting to play us some ripping lead guitar and he certainly did.  Jackie closed the set with Sugaree, helped immeasurably by having Teresa on backup.

Yikes, just one more set to go!  It was another average length intermission and we were getting pretty exhausted.  But our seats were great, the crowd was well behaved, and we were having a fine time.  What was there left to play?  Of course Truckin', Shakedown Street, and Sugar Magnolia ... but there was one more night to go after this one too.  I spoke up for Pride of Cucamonga, and every time I see Larry I'm hoping for his When I Go Away (though it's not really a Grateful Dead song).  Would they open with a Dark Star jam yet again?  And if Jackie's in the house you can't go wrong expecting Caution or So Many Roads.  So here's what they played, yet another excellent second set:

• Shakedown Street
• Pride of Cucamonga
• Truckin'
• Caution (Do Not Stop on Tracks)
• Pride of Cucamonga
• So Many Roads
• When I Go Away
• Cosmic Charlie
• I Know You Rider

Well, it was certainly a jam to open, but you could tell right away it wasn't going into Dark Star, instead they started funkifying things and went into the Shakedown riff.  Grahame was still on bass but gave it up for Minkoff soon and went back to guitar.  And I loved it when they finished that and then went into Pride Of Cucamonga, with Larry excelling on one of the Dead's most country songs.

A pretty quick Truckin' followed, and then they went into a deep jam, deeper and deeper until the bass line of Caution emerged and Jackie stepped to the mike to tell us about going down to see the gypsy lady.  He sang, "And she told me that all you need is just a touch of mojo hand" in one syllable!  Pretty impressive, and then he went on to tell the other guys in the band that they needed to get some mojo hand themselves, though he didn't seem at all assured that they'd follow his advice.

Anyway, a tight return to the last verse of Cucamonga came out of that jam, and then they stopped and Jackie crooned out a lovely So Many Roads.  This was another part of the set where everyone sat down and I did too, but right after I did, I was back up.  What was that they were playing?  It sounded like, and it was, one of my favorite songs ever, sung by the guy who wrote it.  There was probably a bunch of people asking, "What's this song?" but there were another bunch of us dancing and grooving.  This is the quintessential memorial song IMO.

A nice little Cosmic Charlie calmed us down, we were all paddling that paper canoe.  And then the band jammed again and wound up in the partner to the opening number, I Know You Rider.  There was full band and crowd participation on this one, everyone was singing along and feeling fine.

Grahame came out after the set for another donor rap and introduced everyone again, though I missed the name of the guy who took the second drum set for the last couple of songs.  Grahame then started strumming Sugar Magnolia, and soon our music weekend was over.

Back out into another cool night, and a short drive back to a suddenly not-so-crowded Hyatt House.  Heading back home in the morning and we couldn't imagine that the traffic would be any worse!

Grahame Lesh and Friends at the Cap, night 2

Even though I'd brought my own pillow and humidifier, the bed was plenty big enough for tossing and turning, and the window was cracked so the temperature wasn't stifling, this was the first night in a strange place and so I didn't sleep well.  I was exhausted from the stressful drive down and the long and emotional evening's entertainment, but I was barely less exhausted by morning.  Oh well, it's not like I'm not used to this!

And the breakfast experience was not exactly a relief itself.  Yes, the Hyatt House had a good breakfast, but the problem was getting to it.  It's a huge hotel and over the weekend a lot of the people there were Deadheads.  But everyone went to breakfast at the same time and that meant a line to even get in the little breakfast room, empty chafing dishes when you got to the head of it, and an empty coffee dispenser too.  The kitchen staff was trying to keep up, but was short staffed and overtaxed.   And if and when you got your food, good luck finding a seat in that small room, which doubled as their bar in the evenings.

Back up in our nice room, we played a couple of board games (Splendor, then Azul) on the kitchen counter.  We would have liked to go downstairs to the bar to spread out a bigger game on one of their tables, but realized the breakfast brou-ha-ha would take a while to get cleaned up.  We had brought some sandwiches for lunch and stayed in to eat them.  We've gone for nearby hikes in other years, but the day was again very foggy and threatening rain.

Even so, after lunch we were determined to get outside for at least a bit.  The Hyatt House is set in a couple of acres in a large circle of highways.  Most of this hilly, rocky ground has been paved over and features immense, deserted parking lots and spooky, deserted office buildings.  There's also a huge Wegman's, a prep school, a couple of apartment complexes, and a massive gym/pool complex squeezed in there.  They've apparently struggled with groundwater though, and there are rocky dells with gaping culverts and (hopefully well positioned) holding pools between the huge buildings.  We explored around one of the apartment complexes and then the Wegman's parking lot.  Sarah braved the inside of Wegman's to get some spices (the Cap was doing a spice drive), though a laden Deadhead had warned us it would suck us in.

We then poked around the Histogenetics building, which looked like it dated from the 1970s or before, and was surrounded by a cracked, asphalt parking lot that seemingly hadn't been used in decades.  The large lot is arrayed over several hills, and one knoll had a deserted lunch/picnic area on top, mostly blocked off by fallen trees.  This was a spooky, post-apocalyptic office-scape, and seemed to be the norm around there from what we could see from the tops of the hills.  Back to our room for a short nap and then an abbreviated game of Parks in the breakfast room/bar downstairs ... and then it was time to head for the Cap again!

Another trip to Kiosko, and another excellent meal.  I had their Quesadillas de la Casa, Sarah got goat meat, and Dave had a very large piece of salmon.  Our timing was right on, and we were soon up in our center balcony seats, timing the squirrel.  The place had been pretty packed on Friday, but there had been a few empty seats.  This was obviously not going to be the story on Saturday though, as the crowd just poured in and there was not a space to be seen.  One usually has to stand through a show at the Cap to be able to see the stage, but strangely this did not hold true, however.  Maybe we're *all* getting old, but through most of another excellent show, a large number of people stayed seated.  For long stretches we could sit down and not have our view blocked, which was fine with me as my feet and legs were pretty worn out by the end of the evening.

The core of Lesh, Crosby, Krasno, Molo, Burbridge, Mitarotonda, and Hartswick were back, and we were excited to see that Natalie Cressman had joined her partner, Jennifer, and that there was yet another guitar setup over on the left side of the stage.  They were later joined by John Scofield with his singular guitar sound, and by Adam Minkoff on organ and drums.  Here's the first set:

• Friend of the Devil
• Deal
• Althea
• Peggy-O
• Crazy Fingers
• Stella Blue
• He's Gone
• Cold Rain and Snow

They opened with a formulaic take on FOTD and I remember thinking that of course I shouldn't expect a show as great as Friday's.  But then they jammed into Deal, and suddenly this was far from formulaic.  Hartswick and Cressman got their horns going, Oteil was doing his hopping-around thing again, they had Minkoff milking the organ and Crosby rolling on the piano, and we were all back smiling.  Althea was a Mitarotonda showcase, and then Scofield came out for a beautiful Peggy-O, with a great vocal arrangement.  Scofield stuck around for a great Crazy Fingers, on which he was as eclectic as ever.

But then it was time for a slow introduction to Stella Blue and the entire theater was staring at Jennifer with excited anticipation as she slowly took her mike off its stand.  She can sing this as well as it's ever been sung, and that's what she did, with Scofield adding some great guitar fills.  The crowd didn't even bother going nuts, this was church for all of us.  And after Jennifer ended they started another slow intro into He's Gone, and it was Natalie's turn.  She doesn't have the coloratura of Jennifer, but her voice is possibly more mind bending.  She can add a dimension of sincerity, originality, and soulfulness to a song like He's Gone, adding new notes and flourishes to the end of lines.  You've got to hear her.  And we all realized that she was singing He's Gone about Phil, and we all started tearing up yet again.

We'd seen Cressman do this song at the Cap before and it was followed by another Mitarotonda showcase tune, Cold Rain and Snow.  They did that combo again, and this time Rick's excellent vocal was backed up by the whole band, playing at their loudest.  This and Deal were possibly the songs of the set, though Stella Blue and He's Gone were untouchable in their own way.

Possibly a shorter set break that night, halfway through our annual(?) musical sojourn.  The guys came back out and mixed it up a bit.  Oteil had moved to the second drum set and Brian Rashap (Phil's longtime production manager) was playing Phil's "Big Brown" bass.  Also, John Medeski was now squeezed in with Crosby on the keys setup.  Here's the second set:

• Dark Star Jam
• Help on the Way
• Slipknot!
• Franklin's Tower
• King Solomon's Marbles
• Scarlet Begonias
• Comes a Time
• The Other One
• Dark Star

Again, they opened with a wild, long, out there Dark Star jam that wandered and wandered until we were a long way from Westchester County.  The whole weekend was more or less a tribute to Phil, and this sure was.  Their point was that, as Phil often said, Dark Star is always playing out there somewhere, and when our heads are in the right place we can tap into it.  They sure tapped, then Oteil moved back to bass and Minkoff appeared at the second drum set ... and then suddenly, brahnga-brah-dong!!! we were riding the crest of a wave.  Great stuff and so much like what Phil would have done.  This went into a great Slipknot! jam, which at times threatened to break out into the Allman Brothers In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, which made Oteil giggle.

Then a fine Franklin's Tower that threatened to swerve into Blue Sky, and this of course had the whole theater singing along with Jennifer (as if), and then another unexpected and acceptably tight twist, into King Solomon's.  I remembered the thrill of seeing Phil do this with Joe Russo in Boston in 2012.  Fantastic that they'd do both an extensive Slipknot! and then a huge King Solomon's in the same set.  Excellent Scarlet (which Jennifer topped off with the line, "Everybody's playing in the Happy Birthday Phil Lesh band!"), and another wonderful vocal from Oteil on Comes a Time.  He can be so self-deprecating and was seemingly embarrassed to be featured on vocal when Hartswick and Cressman were on the stage, but he's pretty good himself.

Oteil then switched from his bass to Big Brown and we all knew what was about to happen.  They launched into another loud and long intro, but you just knew that he was about to drop that bass run, and then we were off into TOO-land, and then ultimately into a tight Dark Star reprise, with Grahame up on the drum riser orchestrating the climax to the set.  Friday night had been great, but this second set was awesome!

Phew, time to sit down again and get a short break for our aching feet and legs.  Though we'd had some time sitting down during the second set, this had been a workout, physically and emotionally.  Pete Shapiro and Phil's grandson Levon came out with a cake, and we all sang Happy Birthday to Phil, though unfortunately he was not there except in spirit.  Then Grahame did another donor rap, which came out a little smoother than it had on Friday, but was still a bit hard for him to get through.  Then it was time for all players to come out again for introductions and the totally expected Not Fade Away, with lengthy crowd coda.

Another night at the Cap was over!  Back to the car in the foggy night and back up to West Harrison, where we fell into bed shortly.

Grahame Lesh and Friends at the Cap, night 1

 As mentioned, we've seen Grahame Lesh perform with his father for several years, and been quite impressed with his talent as a guitarist and a bandleader.  It's very sad to know that his father, Phil, passed away at 84 this past October.  But it's great to know that Phil's music and his legacy continues.  Grahame announced a couple of months ago that he'd be continuing the tradition of celebrating his father's birthday at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester.  He announced gigs there on March 14 and 15, and then later on the 16th and 17th as well, with different bands.  We got tickets to the first three of the four shows.

Though it's one of the most expensive options around and we'd been avoiding it, we got a room at the Hyatt House in West Harrison.  It's relatively very close to the Cap, was advertised as having a good breakfast, meant that we could avoid the Connecticut Turnpike and/or parkways by sneaking into Westchester County down 84 and 684, and we were able to get a suite with two separate bedrooms for a not outrageous price.  Something had to go wrong!

Well, of course the first thing that went wrong was traffic.  We picked up Dave in Quincy around noon on Friday the 14th, and headed North and then West on the Mass Pike.  It was Friday afternoon and I've rarely seen the Pike so crowded, and of course the more crowded it gets the more aggressive some drivers are.  We got off on 84 and stopped at a rest area for lunch.  This road was saner but not by much, and when we got to downtown Hartford the press of traffic slowed down to a crawl for the next half hour.  We stayed on 84, though Google tried to get us to turn off South, down to the parkways, which we were determined to avoid because of recent bad experiences on them.  We should have risked it though, as we ran into traffic jam after traffic jam all the way out to Danbury, most caused by accidents.  This was not a mellow trip, and Connecticut drivers are erratic.  Finally made it to 684 over the NY border, and this was better, though one car tried to swerve into me when the driver seemed to fall asleep.  And for most of the trip, the other side of the road looked even worse!  Especially on 684, where it was a huge parking lot of people trying to escape NYC.

Anyway, we got to West Harrison and checked into our suite, which was very nice.  We were in a corner of the 4th floor of the huge Hyatt House and the suite had two bedrooms with king beds and en suite bathrooms, a kitchenette, a small living room area, and three large TVs.  The best thing was that the windows actually opened, and we were able to air out the room a bit, though the hotel had not turned on air conditioning yet.  This place wasn't perfect and through the wall we could hear the elevator going up and down, but it was very acceptable.

Unpacked, had a beer or two, and then got things together and headed down Westchester Avenue for the pretty short drive to the parking lot behind Kiosko, where we'd eaten many times before.  They actually seemed to recognize us (they're probably aware of the Cap's schedule, half the people we saw eating there that weekend were definitely Dead-ified), and we had another great meal.  Walked down to the Theatre, checked out the new street sign, went through security, bought some excellent t-shirts, and wandered up to our center balcony seats.  We were in row D that night, row F Saturday, and row E Sunday, all very good center balcony seats.

The people were streaming in and the squirrel was rotating around the Theatre, and then the band came on at about 8:15.  The players they'd advertised were Grahame, Jason Crosby, Eric Krasno, John Molo, Oteil Burbridge, Rick Mitarotonda, and Jennifer Hartswick.  They said they'd also have special guests, which of course led to much conjecture.  The first to come out were Amy Helm and Alex Koford, and the band launched right into a beautiful, moving opener of Box of Rain, with those two and Grahame singing like angels.  Here's the first set:

• Box of Rain
• Cumberland Blues
• They Love Each Other
• Tennessee Jed
• Bertha
• Brown-Eyed Women
• The Music Never Stopped
• Casey Jones

I know there were tears in my eyes during that first song, and I think there were plenty more in the audience and up on stage.  But they pivoted quickly into another song favored by Phil, Cumberland, and then proceeded to take it higher and higher.  Oteil was on fire from the beginning, hopping around the stage in his bare feet and obviously taking this gig very seriously.  But it was clear that this was now Grahame's band.  In the past he'd done a great job of holding together bands assembled by his father with his rhythm guitar and backing vocals, but now his was the dominant guitar sound on stage.

Koford moved to percussion on a second trap set to the left of Molo for BEW, and then Ross James came out on guitar and shared vocals with Jennifer on Music.  As one expected, Hartswick was just surreal on both vocals and trumpet, and the crowd loved her.  There was definitely a problem of too many guitars on stage, but Phil had always done this too, and there were only a few instances of them all going silent at the same time, or them all playing discordantly at the same time.  Krasno really impressed us with some of his leads, and Mitarotonda was great too, though not as dynamic as he would have been in a smaller band.  And we loved it all, this was a really fun first set and of course a great setlist.

After an average length intermission, they were joined by yet another guitarist, Scott Law.  Koford stayed in the second drum seat for most of the songs, though Amy's son, Lavon Collins (named after his grandfather, who later changed his name to Levon), took over for the last couple.  And in the middle of the set, Holly F. Bowling came out to play piano on Eyes and then share the keyboards with Crosby for the rest of the set.  Here's what they played:

• Dark Star Jam
• Uncle John's Band
• Playing in the Band
• New Potato Caboose
• Morning Dew
• Eyes of the World
• Mountains of the Moon
• Turn On Your Love Light

This second set was even better than the first set, it had jaws dropping all over the theater.  They opened with a long, spacey, wild jam that morphed into Dark Star, and then found themselves in yet another song often played by Phil, UJB.  After a short PITB came yet another long and funk-adelic Phil song in New Potato, and the best was still to come.  Amy again duetted with Koford, and they turned in a soulful Dew, Holly came out for her incredible take on Eyes, and then it was Oteil's turn and he gave us a lovely tenor vocal on Mountains of the Moon.  And after that was a long rave-up of Lovelight, with Jennifer bringing the theater down on transcendent vocals.  OMG, this was beyond first class.

We were getting pretty tired by then and all had a seat and a few gulps of water.  But then Grahame came out and got us all crying again.  He told everyone how meaningful this occasion was to him, and was bravely trying to control his emotions.  At one point he almost couldn't continue and his wife danced out to give him a hug.  The extended Lesh family was all there to support each other, this was as special an occasion for them as it was for us.  Grahame then made it, with his voice cracking, through his father's Donor Rap, which he is bound to continue.

And then everyone came out for the encore, which of course was even more emotional.  Amy and Grahame did Attics of My Life, with help from the whole ensemble, and then they finished with an upbeat song, Touch of Grey, with Jennifer on lead vocals.  But of course the message of even such a sunny song is a little bittersweet, and also we remembered seeing James Casey singing this from much the same spot Jennifer stood in, soon before he succumbed to cancer.

Wow, what a night!  The crowd was filing out quickly, it was well past midnight by then.  We sat for a bit and then moved on out ourselves, up the street on a misty, foggy night and back to our car.  Then a short drive back up the road to the Hyatt House and soon to bed.