Phil at the Greek

On Sunday I revisited an aspect of my past by going to see Phil & Friends in concert at The Greek Theatre in Berkeley. Phil Lesh, as most readers here would probably know, was the bass player for The Grateful Dead and has been touring with his own ever-changing band since the demise of the Dead. Although once a huge part of my life, The Dead don't really occupy any part of my daily life anymore, other than the fact that I am still very much connected to many people I met when I was into the Dead.

The last time I went to a Dead related show was about 4 years ago, i think - another show by Phil & Friends. That show was amazing, probably better than most Grateful Dead shows I saw (and I saw between 65 and 70 of them!). The excellence of that show was largely due to the two amazing guitarists, Warren Haynes and Jimmy Herring, as well as the deep, intuitive musical bonds that had developed between the band. Phil's current version of the band has only one member from that older band - the drummer. On guitars he had Larry Campbell and Jackie Green. Jackie Green did most of the singing and was a very good singer, although he struck me as trying too hard to be Bob Dylan circa 1966. Even his original songs that the band played sounded like Dylan tunes from that era. Larry Campbell is a fine guitarist, but his strength is in straight-ahead rock & blues, not the extended, out-there jamming that the Dead excelled at.

Unfortunately, I have to say that I found the whole show rather disappointing. The first set was stuffed with mostly boring blues-based tunes and old rock covers ("Good Morning Little School Girl", "Good Lovin'", "Why Don't We Do It in the Road", "The Weight"). The highlight was a ripping version of the Dead's "Cumberland Blues", which normally doesn't excite me all that much but stood out rather starkly in an otherwise bland setlist.

After a set break that was just over a full hour(!), they hit the stage again and opened with "Playin' in the Band", usually a great showcase for what the Dead did best - extended, exploratory and exciting collective improvisation. This version was alright, but never seemed to really gel or go anywhere and there were none of those transcendental musical moments I look for in music like this. The rest of the set was mostly an exercise in unused potential. "St. Stephen" was nice, but not inspired. Instead of going into "The Eleven" like I hoped, they did another mediocre Jackie Green tune. "Fire on the Mountain" was pretty good, but I would have much rather heard the song it's usually paired with, "Scarlet Begonias". "The Wheel" was done in a tepid arrangement that lacked the life of the Dead's version. "Eyes of the World" was alright, but fizzled out when it should have just started to get really interesting. They closed the show with "Sugar Magnolia" and "Going Down the Road", two of the most boring, over-played Dead tunes to my ears.

Sorry if this review seems overly harsh, but I felt very disappointed by this show, particularly after being so impressed last time I saw them. I will not bother to see this incarnation of Phil & Friends again. Perhaps I'm just too jaded by Dead music now as well. Anyway, those "transcendental music moments" I look for abound in the jazz I now prefer. I'll take a show by Tim Berne or Myra Melford over this any day.

On the plus side, I did get to spend some time with Caroline, Lela and Kait, who came down from Arcata. And after the show, I saw Karen Garfinkle, a former housemate in Ann Arbor nearly 20 years ago. She was rather shocked to see me: "What are you doing here?" "Oh, I live here now... about a 10 minute walk from here, actually!". That was good fun. She's in Santa Cruz, so I'm sure I'll see more of her now.