Monday, May 24, 2004

Hey Now, It's a busy time for Scott & myself as we are bidding on a new house...when things settle down, I'll eventually put some type of report up- not that there is much to add to all these detailed reviews!
Here's Matty's review of 5/22/04

_matty - 11:26pm May 23, 2004 PDT (#2588 of 2639)
Lenny Bruce is not afraid.......

Sorry I missed ya at Slim's Paul. I never got to move around too much once I found my spot.

I got there about 5 minutes before the show started and made my way up to the front w/o much trouble. I found katrinka, kemmy, irenie and scott right away and the party ensued from there. By 9PM it was getting REALLY crowded behind us, but up front it was not bad at all. It was SO crowded in the middle that I guess people must have been thinking "wow, if it's this crowded here it must be way worse up front". Not so. We all had enough room to move and everyone up front was respectful. And to make things even better there was a nice breeze blowing on us all night which made things 100x better. Oh, and the music. I almost forgot.

I'm not going to get into the fine details, but let me start by saying it's the best show I've seen so far this year. The music was strong from start to finish with very few exceptions. The first 2 sets featured several of the best Bay Area musicians going back 40+ years. Nick Gravenites was a lot of fun, the classic blues sound he has perfected is a mainstay in American culture. Seeing David Nelson and Peter Rowan on the same stage was worth the price of admission in itself. The one lull in the five and a half hour show came at the beginning of the 3rd set, but it was fleeting and once Bobby took the stage everything took off. Masterpiece was great. Desolation Row was fun to hear. I was hoping to hear some Hornsby-style Accordian playing from Pete Sears during Desolation but it didn't seem like his mic was working. The Sat Night was awesome w/Bobby and Warren exchanging some incredible solos throughout. I have to say, those 2 play well together. That was one of the highlights of the evening for me. Even the final jam was fun featuring the 3rd Bobby appearance of the evening for The Weight.

The one person I can think of right away who probably should have been there is Grace Slick. I'm sure Spencer would have requested White Rabbit though and apparently she has vowed to never sing that song again. Bummer. I would add Paul Kantner to the list as well, but then we would have run the risk of getting to hear "We built this city" which would have tainted the whole evening.

I had a great evening from start to finish. But then again, I was with friends, we were w/in 10' of the stage, plus we had fresh air and enough room to breathe it. I guess for someone half way back, where it was hot and all you could smell all night was the b.o. of the 5 people squashed up against you, the experience may have been a little less enjoyable. I couldn't read the entire room capacity # on the sign, but I know the first # is a 4. I think it may have said 406. It felt like there was upwards of 500 people in there though. I have a feeling that people who showed up w/o a ticket and had $40 were allowed inside seeing as how it was a benefit. One of the ushers said it was the most crowded she has ever seen it in there. So, in other words the show was a major success. Woohoo!
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_matty - 11:38pm May 23, 2004 PDT (#2589 of 2639)
Lenny Bruce is not afraid.......

Of course no show would be complete w/o at least one freak trying to ruin it for everyone. This particular lady had some real hard energy. Kind of like a mean drunk, but she wasn't drunk at all.
She was just plain crazy. She managed to bad vibe everyone w/in 10' of her before she got herself kicked out of our space. Geez, what is it with people like that. It seems like there's always one at every show, and they always seem end up near me or one of my friends. Crazy lady got in front of katrinka at one point and was making a nuisance of herself. I was seconds away from grabbing her and taking her elsewhere but fortunately she moved and spared me the unpleasantness.