Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
From a new blog
http://newdeadfan.com/2009/05/18/85/
A reprint of an older article
How to get into the Dead
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
What a great time @ Shoreline!
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The Dead - "Friend of the Devil" from KFOG on Vimeo.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Bob Weir & Ratdog will perform at the Greek
Theater in Los Angeles, CA on Saturday,
September 5, 2009. The age limit is 6 years
and older. Doors open at 6:30 PM. Showtime
is 7:30 PM. Reserved seats are available via
mail order for $54.00 per ticket and available
via credit card for $57.00 per ticket. Rear
reserved and bench seats are available via mail
order for $44.00 per ticket and available via
credit card for $47.00 per ticket.
The first mail/fax in dates for this performance
are Tuesday, May 12, 2009 through Friday,
May 15, 2009.
Tickets are also available for all of the
Bob Weir & Ratdog performances listed on
http://www.gdtstoo.com/GDTSTOOBobWeir&RatdogSummer2009.html
The Crew of GDTS TOO
May 12, 2009
Show me the Monet!
Amongst the jillion-and-one elements supporting The Dead’s Spring 2009 Tour is the artwork -- from the interactive spiral galaxy logo on the Tour’s home page, to the nifty musical minuteman dude on the Tour’s laminated working passes, to the designs on the Tour T-shirts sold at the merch stands in the lobby. And if you’ve been to a gig lately, you’ve likely noticed a particularly fine new T-shirt, quite unlike any we’ve seen before...
In advance of each tour, Merch-Maestro George Bross solicits artwork possibilities from various folks, from which he picks the designs that become the tour's trophy T-shirts. This time around, one of the submitted artworks came from Monet Weir, Bobby’s 11-year-old daughter: it’s a lovely, blossomy, viney-twiney take on the familiar skeleton-and-roses motif, done up in yer classic blue, red and white. Monet thought of the drawing she gave George as just a suggestion, really: a rough idea, a sketch, a template if you will, which -- should it by happy chance be chosen for a T-shirt -- would then be whisked away and turned over to some professional-type artiste person to be turned into professional-type artwork. But Maestro George, in one of those moments of insight, foresight, and white-light clarity, swiftly perceived that Monet’s drawing was not a sketch or suggestion or template for any artwork at all, oh no -- Monet’s drawing WAS the artwork. So he had a bunch of T-shirts made up, and, well, hotcakes should only sell this well.
Trouble was, they were only available in Children’s Size L, because the thinking was that it was a children’s shirt. Now Children’s Size L fits some women but not all, and no men to speak of, which to no one’s surprise except maybe George’s left a whole lot of disappointed Deadheads at the merch tables. Well, positive group-think has been applied to this pickle, and the cognitive leap has been made from “shirt for a kid” to “shirt by a kid”, and now Monet’s wonderful design is available on T-shirts in sizes to accommodate pretty much everyone. Get one for yourself (and your inner child) today.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
After all the admission dust settled, UCSC found they did indeed have space for my daughter!
After poking around the UCSC website- here's some info I found for folks coming to Shoreline for Dead shows:
The Dead '09: Shoreline
We'll be there.
For those of you catching a miracle and being lucky enough to get tickets for the two Shoreline, Mountain View concerts of The Dead '09 tour on May 10th and 14th, stop by the UCSC Grateful Dead Archive booth, say hello, and help us out financially. We'll be there and we'll be fundraising to help process and preserve the Archive. Any amount helps and goes to pay for supplies, equipment and staffing -- all needed to secure the Archive for the future and to make it accessible to fans and scholars now. We'll be selling Grateful Slug t-shirts and also taking donations. (If you're from out of the area and still want to contribute , here's how to make a donation:
Online gifts can be made at: http://library.ucsc.edu/give
T-Shirts can be ordered here.
.......
Strangers Stopping Strangers, Just to Shake Their Hand:
The Dead
Saturday, May 2, 2009
The Spectrum
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
With demolition of the Spectrum scheduled for September, this was to be the final concert ever put on at the legendary Philadelphia arena and expectations were running high. Such expectations are typically a bad sign for deadheads, who know well that our boys tend to disappoint at the big ones, noting lackluster performances at Woodstock, the pyramids in Egypt, and a handful of Bonnaroo festivals. Yet this time the band came to play, the audience came to listen, and for one more night we found ourselves at the center of the universe.
Late in the second set, as the band was winding down the improvisational section Drums->Space that they do each evening, guitar player and vocalist Bob Weir struck the first chord of the 1960’s post-apocalyptic folk song Morning Dew. What followed was a storybook excursion to a place that only the Grateful Dead know. With a blood-red rose affixed to his microphone stand and a woman in a long, flowing Spanish flamenco dress synchronistically twirling in the light of the hallway behind his left shoulder, Weir led the band through this much-loved Jerry Garcia staple. They charged through a solid rendition of Dew that was both respectable in its own right and respectful of the audience’s collective memory of and love for Garcia. The energy in the arena built and built, until Weir belted out the final line: “I guess it doesn’t matter, anyway.”
And the crowd went wild.
Weir was clearly drained and the band came to a complete stop not typically found in this segment of their concerts, milling about the stage as if both to collect themselves and to give the audience the space we needed to dwell in the moment. Others have noted that this performance seemed to be a particularly emotional one for Weir, almost bringing him to tears. At a lull in the crowd’s roar, I noticed bassist Phil Lesh walk over and give Weir the celebratory fist bump made famous by the President and First Lady. Extremely proud of my lifelong hero and thrilled by yet another triumphant display from our home team, I cupped my hands in front my mouth and yelled “Attaboy, Bobby!” from my 6th row, just-right-of-center seat. Even though I was close to the stage, I assumed that my voice would be lost in the crowd. However, the very moment after I screamed out my message of approval and support for the tribute he had just paid to his fallen friend, Weir changed his stance to face my direction and, guitar in hand, took a slight bow. I was stunned and unsure of what had just happened. I’ve read enough skeptical philosophy to know that the juxtaposition of two events in time does not necessarily indicate causation. Yet through my doubts, I do know what occurred; for a brief moment in time I was recognized and thanked by a person to whom I have been, and will be, eternally grateful.
- TravisP
Monday, May 04, 2009
Concert review: The Dead at Allstate Arena
The Grateful Dead has been buried and resurrected many times over the last 15 years. Still reeling from the death of its spiritual force and lead guitarist, Jerry Garcia in 1995, the band has never really gone away, but it has never really been the same.
Yet on Monday, in the first of two concerts at the Allstate Arena, the reconstituted (and no longer Grateful) Dead – with four surviving members from its legendary ‘60s incarnation – sounded surprisingly spry before a near-capacity audience.
The night did not get off to a flying start. On the contrary, the band sounded like it was still waking up as it meandered through “China Cat Sunflower” and “Born Cross-Eyed.” But things perked up considerably when guitarist Warren Haynes salted “Built to Last” with soul inflections, abetted by sharp three-part harmonies.
The band was locked in after that, drawing heavily on rarities (“Pride of Cucamonga”) and covers (Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, the traditional “Peggy-O”) to create an adventuresome set high on energy and steeped in a sense of occasion.
There was Bob Weir’s robust take on “Wang Dang Doodle,” in tribute to Chicago blues giant Howlin’ Wolf. And there was an encore of “Box of Rain,” the same song with which the Dead closed its July 9, 1995, concert at Soldier Field, Garcia’s final performance.
At its worst, the Dead can sound woozy and incoherent. And nobody self-indulges like this band. Its nightly 20-minute descent into “Drums and Space” is a tedious tradition that needs to die.
But at its best, the sextet presents an unconventional democracy, where there is no instrumental hierarchy. Drums and bass can float on top of the mix, guitars below, and then trade places. Often there is a sense of weightlessness about the songs, no ballast, the notes floating in free space. At other times, Phil Lesh’s six-string bass can drop A-bombs that shake sternums in the back rows.
As the parts interlocked and then came apart again, the band’s unique sonic architecture became a point of detailed fascination. At times drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart puttered around, barely audible. But then they played “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad” with such exultant force that the song jumped.
Even at this late stage, the band still has the ability to surprise. Instead of relying on concert staples, it focused on some of the more obscure corners of its catalogue. Haynes brought a haunting beauty to Garcia’s “Standing on the Moon.” And Weir, spurred on by Hart’s vicious cymbal accents, turned “Liberty” into an unexpected anthem, easily the best version of the song I’ve heard the band perform.
The band members looked glad to be doing their jobs, and the audience responded in kind. It was only fitting that Weir turned over a section of the New Orleans party standard “Iko Iko” to the fans. Rattling his tambourine, the singer looked to the audience to sing a verse, and thousands of voices came through in passable Creole. Then Weir cued the band back in, and the song finished with musicians and fans in sync, reveling in the moment and in their shared history.
greg@gregkot.com
The Dead’s set list Monday at Allstate Arena
1. China Cat Sunflower
2. Born Cross-Eyed
3. Built to Last
4. Pride of Cucamonga
5. I Need a Miracle
6. Wang Dang Doodle (Howlin’ Wolf)
7. West L.A. Fadeaway
8. Liberty
9. All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan)
Second set
10. Mexicali Blues
11. Into the Mystic (Van Morrison)
12. Pretty Peggy-O (traditional)
13. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (Bob Dylan)
14. Drums/Space
15. Iko Iko (New Orleans traditional)
16. Standing on the Moon
17. Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad (traditional)
Encore
18. Imagine (John Lennon)
19. Box of Rain
July 14-15, 2009
Penn's Peak
Jim Thorpe, PA
w/ Jackie Greene
For updated info, please visit http://www.ratdog.org/tour
annnd!
Just announced: July 21, 2009 Greenfield Amphitheater Wilmington, NC w/ Jackie Greene