On Friday night, Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir hosted a
five-hour celebration entitled Move Me Brightly, in honor of what would have
been Jerry Garcia's 70th birthday. A stirring 30-minute documentary directed by
Justin Kreutzmann, son of Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann, kicked off the
proceedings. Then a rotating group of musicians that numbered nearly 20-deep
took turns performing in various configurations, under Weir's stewardship. The
event was webcast live from Weir's TRI Studios in San Rafael, California.
Fittingly, Garcia's memory was honored with musical passages
that sounded nothing like the licks Garcia himself would have played, but which
captured his spirit by pushing the source material in new directions, and
unearthing previously undiscovered territory between their beginnings and
endings. As Weir told Rolling Stone during rehearsals, "You find Jerry in
the songs. And he's amply there."
In addition to Weir and Grateful Dead singer Donna Jean
Godchaux, the one-time-only group of musicians included Phish's Mike Gordon,
Furthur's Joe Russo and Jeff Chimenti, the Hold Steady's Craig Finn and Tad
Kubler, Vampire Weekend's Chris Tomson, the Yellowbirds' Sam Cohen and Josh
Kaufman, Ryan Adams and the Cardinals' Neal Casal and Jon Graboff, the Black
Crowes' Adam MacDougall and Norah Jones' Jason Abraham Roberts, as well as
singer-songwriters Jim Lauderdale, Jonathan Wilson, Cass McCombs and Harper
Simon.
"If you don't know who some of these people are,"
Weir told the crowd, "you're in the same boat as me."
That said, fans immediately recognized the unannounced
starting bassist as Phil Lesh. This brought the Grateful Dead member count on
stage up to three for the first two numbers, "The Wheel" and
"Cumberland Blues." As if passing some kind of torch, Lesh then
handed the bass duties over to Phish's Mike Gordon, who quickly established
himself as one of the night's MVPs.
"I've heard Mike Gordon play bass more than anybody
else in my whole life and his playing is just engrained in me," guitarist
Jason Abraham Roberts told Rolling Stone. "To get to stand beside him and
hear him play like that, instead of in front or listening on headphones, is
such a crazy feeling. I actually enjoyed getting to watch him play in rehearsal
as much as I enjoyed playing."
For keyboardist Adam MacDougall, the event was a chance for
him to get up close and personal with the Grateful Dead songbook as much as it
was an opportunity to celebrate Garcia. MacDougall admits that he wasn't the
biggest Deadhead growing up, but he got hooked more recently during tours with
the Chris Robinson Brotherhood. Robinson plays "a lot" of Grateful
Dead on the tour bus.
"Doing this event really gets you inside the music with
the people who really started it, the mindset of the cats that were
there," MacDougall told Rolling Stone. "That really helps you to get
'in it' instead of just playing it. You really get to understand it from the
inside out."
Joe Russo has had that exact perspective for the past few
years as the drummer in the Grateful Dead spinoff band, Furthur. "Jerry
Garcia was a total man of his own who just recreated an instrument in his
vision, in his voice," Russo told Rolling Stone. "It's just so cool
to see the reach of this music so far outside its genre, and the influence.
Everybody's approach to it is just very fresh and different. I think people are
respecting the original recordings and original arrangements, but putting their
own contemporary spin on it, coming from a completely different place – these
guys aren't jam band guys that ended up playing Grateful Dead songs."
Even Weir was willingly taken out of his comfort zone
several times throughout the proceedings, as the marathon set focused on
Garcia's show pieces – some of which were pulled from his solo bands
("Don't Let Go") while others were his signature tunes in the Dead
proper ("Terrapin Station").
The Hold Steady's Craig Finn brought his unique vocal style
to the mix on several numbers, turning the traditionally sing-songy
"Scarlet Begonias" into one of his speak-sing rave-ups. "I have
a Dancing Bear on my guitar and people ask me all the time, 'Are you really a
Dead fan?'" Finn told Rolling Stone. "I am. And I've been into them
since I've been in high school. They're one of those bands that you can keep
listening to over your life, because you can get new meanings out of these
songs forever – and I think lyrically they're some of the strongest songs in
rock and roll."
Midway through the set, retired basketball star,
sportscaster and Deadhead celebrity Bill Walton became animated from four rows
deep in the audience. "I like this band!" Walton shouted at one
point. "It's a good band you’ve got here!"
He wasn't wrong. And afterwards, most of the musicians as
well as a large percentage of the studio audience all made their way a few
miles down Highway 101 to Terrapin Crossroads, the performance space that Phil
Lesh recently opened. (Lesh had retreated to Terrapin following his cameo in
Move Me Brightly for a previous commitment with Yonder Mountain String Band).
As all parties reconvened at Terrapin Crossroads after the
respective shows, instruments were hastily moved to the bar area. Lesh then led
a loose ensemble of musicians – including Jon Graboff, Jeff Chimenti, Jason
Abrahman Roberts and Jonathan Wilson – through yet another set of Dead-based
jams. The spontaneity of it combined with the fact that it was a free bar show
was, in some ways, the most fitting Jerry Garcia tribute of all, in a night
filled with them.
No comments:
Post a Comment