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.
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