the futures here, we are it, we are on our own
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6:10am on super tuesday, and to paraphrase Bob Weir's message from last night at 9:30pm, "get your ass out and vote, it could be the last chance in your lifetime to bring about fundamental change" is it that dire? i don't know, but lots of heavy shit is going on, and there is nothing like having a tiny little voice in it. if you need to register to vote, go here http://www.headcount.org/but screw big time, massive money spending blotto politics, let's talk about music and community. you see i called every connected friend, label buddy, shyster promoter and music industry honcho i knew for the hastily arranged, what's left of the good, old Grateful Dead, Obama for change show..........and at 6:30pm last night, I WAS SHUT OUT. Who came through? you guys, the MOG community, and god bless you. it came in the form of my rock star compadre Wanbli(http://mog.com/Wanbli). the man went out of his way to find me a ticket for the first sighting of Bob Weir and Phil Lesh on stage together in years( mickey too but no billy). ain't no way i was going to miss it. tickets were being scalped for big dollars, and what did Wanbli charge me? ZIP! he even brought me up in the better sounding balcony of the warfield on seedy market street for the meat of the 3rd set. so after a little Barack speech on a movie screen( where he mimbled something about change), the boys came out with the current line up of Phil's band and broke into the 37 year old, "playing in the band" and away we went. it sounded pretty good i have to say, and incredibly, it was almost 9 years since i had seen any dead family music in that venue. those were the landmark april 99' phil, molo, kimock, page and trey shows( some of the best dead music i ever witnessed). yes time had flown. anyway, Phil was booming, Bobby was singing and Playin develped nicely with a decent transition into "brown eyed women". bobby and phil didn't interact much given their chilly recent history, but they clearly were both glad to be playing together. the rest of the short first set included a poorly Phil sung "1/2 step" and the topical Beatles cover, "come together"after a short break i saw the only acoustic almost Dead music i have ever seen, with Phil on a big stand up bass, they did "deep elem", "FOTD", a sweet Jackie Green sung "Deal" and the glorious taoist ode Garcia/Hunter composition, "ripple". inpast years i would have scoffed a bit at bobby trying to sing this jerry song, but at this point the man has earned his right to sing it and he did it justice as wellafter another break they opened with "china cat" that had an odd, disjointed transition into "the wheel". this led into a superb, old school throwdown "other one". after a lovely Jackie sung( the kid is great) "sugaree" they went into "eyes of the world" and my swollen knee said it's time to go.i wandered out to the hallway and saw a group of friends. we caught up, asked about wives, dogs and kids, and it hit me that i was part of a wonderful community. it stretched from Kerouac to Neil Cassidy to Ginsburg to Kesey to Garcia and the extended Dead family right into the on hiatus String Cheese Incident family to current keepers of the flame like Hot buttered Rum. It felt good. you know the Dead were never political at all. but they were about choice, freedom, respect, healthy skepticism..........the good shit. i said my good nights to my group, including JPB, the author of the words that Weir was belting out now: " so the kids they dance, they shake their bones, and the politicians throwing stones, yes it's all to clear were on our own, singing ashes ashes all fall down, ashes ashes all fall down." Indeed!
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