They're expecting to get to the final verse of Friend of the Devil from the Wrigley Field show by sometime tomorrow morning.
Hey, they played an up-tempo version of FotD this summer! The opening of Shakedown, on the other hand...
When this band started the first things I was wondering were, will Bob drag the tempo's down like Ratdog 2014 and will they force Mayers vocals on us. As it's gone on, more slow grooves and more Mayer lead vocals.
Weir's vocal timings are just strange now. I have to admit I have never seen the Dead & Co. My last non-Jerry version was The Other Ones. Happy for others who enjoy it, but listening to the Lockn stream and he has this weird habit of singing a line and then waiting a whole beat/measure (help me out here I'm not a musician) before going to the next line. I heard him do it on several tunes, like Estimated and then switch in the middle of the song or verse back to the normal timing then back to the offbeat timing. He seems all over the place, not to mention the talk singing on the Jerry tunes he does drives me nuts. oops forgot I saw the Warren Haynes version of The Dead.
He has been doing that for a while (added a measure between lines in Estimated at Fare Thee Well too).
My first impression of Ross James was very positive though I think the 9/8 show might have had two lead guitarists. I agree that John and John K are a little more imitative than most, though there's only so much innovation in the Jerry Garcia Guitar style genre anyway. That's why I actually liked what Warren brought to the group, the hard rock aspect of the Dead kind of died out around 72, with Warren I thought it was kind of whipping them into shape some of the time, even if I didn't really love every part of his approach. They did a Gimme Shelter that sounded exactly as powerful as they did in 1970.
I'm going to TerrapinCrossroads on Friday and Ross will be the guitarist, so hopefully I get a better impression. I may need to mellow out on this issue a bit.
That seems to be the consensus. But I gotta hope for the best. Small room, it'll be pretty cool. Ticket was only $46 with fees. They're doing E'72 Vol. 2. Had Dead & Co.'s "Dark Star" from Flushing 2016 come up on shuffle today. Mayer Dead holds up on the re-listening.
Agree, I liked the Phil and Friends shows with Warren better than others I saw (was out of the country and missed the Warfield shows with Trey and Page in '99 though). I thought Ross James was solid enough when I saw him with Phil last week.
I got both Madison Square Garden. Mediocre seats, but fine with it. I didn't feel like trying for GA floor.......especially the Tuesday show where I'm going to be coming in later from work. 2 Dead & Co MSG, and Phil Asbury Park.............I'm set up for all the post-GD I need this fall.
I agonized about going to the July Detroit show. Ultimately I passed. When I saw the set-list, I sighed: `Truckin'', `Playing In The Band', `Dear Prudence', et al. So I ordered the CDs from Nugs and the show is terrific. I am not a Mayer fan but that was a tremendous concert (that I should have gone to).
Warren Haynes' version was terrible. I walked out at half time. These tribute shows are never that good and us Deadheads are not young so it's a senior fest every time. No more for me.
I'll continue to say that the current version of the band is worth seeing. The Wrigley shows were excellent (and worth listening to after the fact). They are putting on a good show. Is it E 72? No. Set your expectations for a fun night of Dead music and you will be rewarded. If you will spend the night lamenting what/who isn't there, this isn't for you.
Let's remember, a lot of us want Bobby playing with a certain guy that Phil Lesh may or may not like on lead guitar, preferably 12 months a year, so there's a bit of sore feeling. I'm glad so many people are having fun and are pumped for this band. Also, I think Bobby's singing great the last few years.
It really is a great vibe at the shows. Dare I say it's the closest any of the post-95 incarnations have had to that crowd vibe of what it used to be.
I do wish they would play about 20% louder. Drown out a little more of the chatter. Summertime outdoor shows with daylight during Set 1 seems to keep everyone talking.
Never was much of a Kimock/Ratdog fan, although I went to several shows. Some were definitely better than others. I've seen really good Ratdog and meh Ratdog. My first two shows at the Fillmore in SF were Ratdog, so I guess that's something. I'd never been that close to the stage at any show featuring Weir, so that was cool. Went to Terrapin last Friday and saw Phil, Grahame Lesh, Stu Allen, Holly Bowling and I don't know the name of the drummer. It was really good, they did Europe '72 Vol. 2 but got really creative within the set list as far and going out of songs, into others, and then back. Stu Allen was totally doing Jerry, and I encourage that behavior. Phil's son is a really good guitar player, played all the Bob rhythm parts and also took some leads, sang all the Bob songs.