Dead & Company 2019-06-22 Gillette Stadium, Foxboro, MA

     On the second day of Summer, Dead & Company played the 12th show of their Summer Tour.  Due to my own schedule and the (small) tour's schedule, this was the only show I could make; no pressure at all, right?  Foxboro is always a bit of a hassle to get to, and this is probably (I'm not checking) the biggest venue the band has played, so between travel worries, crowd anxiety, and first show shakes, there was a lot of tension in the air.  Especially given the surprise change in weather that led to rain and thunder on the way to the stadium!  But when my folks and I finally did get situated in the lot and met up with some friends, all those worries seemed to blow away with the clouds.  We had to get to Will Call to clear up some ticket confusion, which meant we got to hear the band soundcheck Big Railroad Blues, Help On the Way > Slipknot!, Friend of the Devil, and Black Throated Wind.  Some people claimed to have heard Box of Rain soundchecked as well!  We got our tickets, made it through the line, and got spots right in front of the soundboard with plenty of time to spare.  We wandered around, checked out merch, met and made friends, and all made it back to our spots ready for the show to start.

First Set

• Eyes Of The World > (BW)
• I've been following along with the tour through streams and recordings, and should have known to expect a strange opener.  They've been opening shows with Other Ones, Terrapins, and the like, but this one caught me off guard!
• It started off with a relaxed vibe.  A bit of vamping before the first verse, and then John took a very summery solo.  Not a lot of shredding, just easy, smooth licks, not so much soloing as plucking a string of notes from the air.
• And that was nice, but then it was Jeff's turn to solo...or so we thought.  Really it was a duo between Jeff and John, which at first irked me because Jeff deserves his own solo, but it was still the high point of the song.  Jeff and John would trade leads, Jeff taking the first part and leading John where he wanted him to go, then countering in the other direction.  This made for some amazing interactions between the band as they followed one leader or the other.
• After the final verse Oteil got his normal solo.  He got a new bass this tour, the body of which is a giant purple ankh, with a smaller ankh on the octave frets.  I had only heard it digitally up until now, and was impressed by what I heard, but seeing and feeling it live was another thing.  It rings like a bell on the higher end, rumbles deep and low on the bottom end, and has such clean sound across the whole sonic spectrum.  It was a bit shorter than some of his other solos (I mean it was the show opener, how much can you expect?), but still an incredible listening experience.  When he was done they brought the song back to a one chord vamp like at the beginning, and then went through a closing sequence that Jeff first started leading back at Fenway in '17.
• Deal (JM)
• They've done Eyes > Deal quite a lot in the last few years, but here in the first set it made a bit more sense to me.
• They did pause for a small beat before starting up Deal, but it does feel like a > situation.
• You've probably heard me complain of getting enough Deals in the past, but this one really was fun.  John did an excellent job leading the band through peaks and valleys in the various solos, and Jeff got to shine on the organ.
• Black Throated Wind (BW)
• Ok, one soundcheck song down!
• I love this song so much, and have been itching to see this band play it, but this version did feel a little plodding to me.  John seemed to have some tech troubles at first, and never really took off.
• And I have to say, Bobby (or his manager) must have been trying to troll the New England crowd.  The Bruins had just lost the Stanley Cup to the St. Louis Blues, and here was Bobby singing in MA the only Dead song with St. Louis in it, and throwing in additional "blues" references no less!  Well we all caught on to him and you could hear the crowd reacting for a good while afterwards.
• Easy Wind (JM)
• A first for me!
• John started playing Big Boss Man at first, but the band all stared at him until he realized he was wrong, looked at the setlist, and said "Ok, different song...same key," and kicked this one off instead.
• Unfortunately short, but they've had some troubles with it in the past, so maybe it was for the best.  As it was, John really made it his own vocally, and the solo he played was still hot, even if we all could have stood for another minute or 4 of it.
• Loser (BW)
• Two dark bluesy songs paired together, more or less successfully.
• This one was a little shaky up until the solo.  I think the drummers got lost or distracted, and tried to end the song after the first "got no chance of losing," maybe because Bobby had come in early just before?
• Either way, John saved it all in the solo section.  He started off restrained, but really took over and brought the house down by the third rotation.  He approached it a little like Jerry circa '78, really high on the neck and bending the notes, but ended with a fast barrage of spiraled leads.
• Big Railroad Blues (JM)
• Another soundcheck down, and a real highlight of the set.  Some smoking leads from John and Jeff, and at a great tempo!
• Bird Song > (BW& JM)
• I've seen a few of these, but this one really caught me off guard.  The intro, while obviously Birdish, felt like it could have gone into Jack Straw, He's Gone, or maybe an Allman Bros song.
• Jeff and Oteil provided excellent counterpoints and embellishments throughout the lyrics.
• The jam after the verses had Mickey on the Beam, and started off in the typical Bird Song way, but soon turned went in a whole new direction that sounded exactly like Loose Lucy and New Speedway at the same time.  I'm still shocked it didn't turn into one of those, especially the way Jeff was leaning into them.
• Instead, John went into total Mayer Mode, ripping off bluesy leads while Jeff, Bobby, and Oteil led the drummers back towards Bird territory gradually.  Through telepathic architecture they brought it back to the perfect launching point for the reentry into the chorus.
• The other versions this tour have featured a huge second jam before finishing the lyrics off, but instead this one drifted off into silence before John launched them into...
• Box Of Rain (JM)
• I had forgotten to tell my dad about this being soundchecked, and he was thrilled.  At least up until the trainwreck; then he was thrilled and entertained!
• First John forgot a verse, then Bob pitched in to remind him of what it was.  This seemed to throw John off for the next verse, but when he tried to skip ahead to where he thought the band was, the band had reverted to vamping for him to start the entire verse over.  At that point John threw his hands in the air to call the whole thing off, but the band kept rotating to see if he wanted to give it another shot, and then they all just called it quits.  Bobby gave a quick count off and they started the whole song over, Bobby stepping to the mic and saying "Take two!"
• John forgot one of the same verses, but the train kept rolling this time and it turned into a great version of the song!  They hadn't done it since 2016, and it's a damned complicated song, so you can't really blame them for getting it a bit off.
• They jammed out the end of the solo a little bit like Phil does, with some fireworks from John, but mostly played it a lot like the album version.  Bobby provided some nice, if sometimes questionable, harmonies and backups.
• We had gotten a bit of rain when we first got into the stadium, and the wind had been blowing all day, so between the "box of rain," "wind and water," "sun and shower," "wind and rain" lines and the "words have twisted and thoughts unclear" lines, it all felt very appropriate.

     I think the original plan was probably to have gone back into Bird Song, but instead this wound up the set.  The crowd had really filled in by now, so I stayed rooted in place while my dad ventured out for bathrooms and drinks.  The venue staff had been very chill all night, and there was just one lady with a headset wandering from one smoke cloud to another telling people they couldn't smoke, then walking away before they had put it out.  We had lucked out with our neighbors, and everyone was having a good time.  A friend of mine was at the show hoping for her first Dark Star, which hadn't been played for a while.  Would she finally get one??  Well the lights went down and we soon got our answer.

Second Set

• Help On The Way > (JM)
• Even if I hadn't heard the soundcheck, this was obviously what they were tuning up to.  Right when Bobby was counting off I muttered "Help on the Way..." and when they hit those opening chords the guy in front of me lost his shit!
• This set the tone for the rest of the night: they were gonna play the best show they could play, and we were gonna have to dance to not get knocked off our feet.
• John's solo was a little more laid back than previous performances I've seen of the song, but it was still engaging, especially with the rest of the band feeding him their own ideas for him to bounce off of and run around.  Jeff's Rhodes sounded amazing, very clear and splashy.
• The transition into Slip! was played so perfectly I could have cried, they were clearly firing on all cylinders.
• Slipknot!
• The Slip Riffs were equally perfect, and felt simultaneously organic and mechanized, like the band was some kind of techno-organic force churning out these sounds.
• John wasted no time laying into the jam, rocketing the band into far out territory.  Jeff and Bobby sat back a little to provide atmospheric whispers and current, while Oteil followed right under John's part.
• While this didn't really leave typical Slip! territory, it sure did explore every corner of it before they were done.  John and Jeff, who have been next to each other on stage for about a tour and a half, started building each other up as they approached the Slip Cord until Bobby was finally ready to slide into it.  I thought they might have gone into it a bit early, but it ended up being as perfect as the rest of the song.  Oteil delivered a ground shaking bass bomb right at the end.
• There may have been a wrong note in the fast ascending section of the Slip Riffs, but all of the timings were still just exactly perfect.
• Franklin's Tower > (JM)
• Even though they had soundchecked Franklin's, I was expecting them to throw us a curve ball here.  Oh well!
• John kicked it off with a little "Eyy!" and the whole stadium was bouncing and dancing.
• This version felt a little thin and rough to me at first, especially when Jeff wasn't given time to really grow his solo.  But right after that he and John worked together again to make things a little raucous.
• In the quiet section before the final verse, John totally took over and created his own little minijam that brought this performance from average to awesome.  The crowd was going nuts as he built up from a simple riff to what felt like a whole other song, before he led the band back to the lyrics.
• Instead of coming back to the closing riff from Slipknot!, Bobby counted them off into...
• He's Gone > (BW & JM)
• Amazing set so far, but our Dark Star hopes were dwindling!  "Maaaaaybe they could go into Dark Star, but it's a long shot," we said to each other.
• Not that we were complaining, this was an excellent version.  It's always been a slower song, and this one felt particularly slow, but not in a lazy or sloppy way.  Each note dripped with intention and focus, and the solo really took off.  Bobby has a new guitar this tour that sounds great, but he was playing our favorite green guitar during this song to great effect.
• The outro jam wasn't very long, and for about 30 seconds I was sure Bobby was starting up Easy Answers, a song I would like to hear but is a far shot from Dark Star.  But then Jeff played some unmistakable notes and led the band into a sloppy intro to
• Dark Star > (BW)
• IT HAPPENED!  The crowd picked up on it during the intro, and drowned out the slightly flubbed riffs, but then Bobby settled into his main holding pattern and the others locked into sync around him, Mickey getting the Beam droning; I'm not trying to knock Mickey's drumming, but this band seems to jam best when he's got the Beam doing its thing and Billy handles the actual drums of it all.  Remember, the original Dark Stars had barely an percussion in them until mid '69!
• This at first followed the outline they've been doing since last year: a jam on the main theme, an instrumental take on the lyrics section, some more theme, and then the verse.  But even in this relatively formulaic part of the song, Bobby surprised us by jumping into the lyrics before the theme had really settled, instead coming out of seemingly nowhere.  Jeff provided some mind bending reinterpretations of the old organ riff that Pigpen and TC used to play.
• And then magic happened.  I have often faulted this band, especially John, for seeming uncomfortable in formless jams, but tonight they made me eat my words.  In the past they never drifted too far from the theme even between verses, but this time it was like they had an agreement that no one would play remotely near the theme.  Instead they proceeded to get weirder than I've ever seen them get, live or recorded.  Jeff and Oteil provided forms or absences thereof that Bobby and John would pick up on or let pass by, depending how they felt.  Mayer too contributed many ideas to the mix, leading to a Dark Star that was dense and weird, but manically danceable.
• Then suddenly, out of the chaos, Bobby started singing the second verse!  This was done kind of like how he's been doing The Other One, with big gaps between the lyrics for the band to fall back into chaos before singing the next line.  This felt very JRAD-y, and maybe confused Bob a bit, but ultimately was very cool.  They locked back into sync to finish the lyrics, and then went off on their "Nightfall of Diamonds" jam/refrain.  This jam is in 12/4 time, and even before they started playing The Eleven last year, I've always thought that was the logical destination.  Unfortunately no Eleven tonight, just a spritely jam that drifted off into nothingness as Billy and Mickey got in position.
• *Editor’s Note: David’s friend Dreamflower was at peak face-stolen bliss. Her entire section hugged and high-fived her on hearing her first live Dark Star, and she lived happily ever after*
• Drums >
• This could be the best Drums I've seen live.  Oteil joined in as always, and Mickey set some rhythms looping from his Beam computer, and then the three of them crafted some very compelling polyrhythms on the actual drums.  I know a lot of people will excuse the drummers for their sloppiness by saying that they're actually just playing complicated rhythms that sound sloppy to the untrained ear, but these felt intentional and well executed.
• They had a cam right on one of the center drums that turned into a very intimate Oteil cam on the Jumbotrons.
• Space >
• Eventually Mickey gave that Beam a whack, and Billy and Oteil ran for cover.  I've seen Mickey kick, lick, and assault the Beam before, but tonight was the loudest and deepest I've ever felt it.  He would pluck a low string, then play the others with a bow, and this would create a giant harmonic frequency that could be felt in every bone of my body.
• Eventually he even blew a speaker in the top left stack!  They eventually cut the feed to that one I think, because it stopped once the rest of the band came out.  On the soundboard you can't feel the real resonance of the Beam, but you can sure hear that casualty crackle.
• Mickey left with a mischievous grin on his face as the others returned for their half of Space.  They played a very light and empty kind of a jam, Oteil sitting down and running his arms up and down his bass while Bobby took most of the directional work.
• John quoted something that I swear I've heard him quote before, but I just can't place what it's from.  It sounds like something from a sci-fi show or movie, but I can't place it for the life of me.  If you have the soundboard recording, listen to Space from 2:00-2:20  and tell me what you think.
• Stella Blue > (BW)
• Eventually the jam wound up to a perfect jumping off point for them st start up a beautiful Stella.  It started a little shaky, but they locked it down almost immediately.
• While I would love to hear Oteil sing this one, Bobby still does a great job on it.
• Like with He's Gone, this slow song felt very full and alive, not a dirge or a drag at all.  John's solo really shines too, very piercing and heartfelt.
• The outro jam takes off nicely for a while before drifting back down to a mellow melody.
• Not Fade Away > (ALL)
•  Bobby starts up the unmistakable Bo Diddly riff, and everyone who had been blissing out got down to boogie.  Some people had left already (cowards) so there was more room than ever to cut a rug...or a piece of plastic or metal, take your pick.
• Hot leads between verses, and then right when it seemed like they were going to wrap it up into a short version, they instead shifted into the classic follow-up.
• Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad > (ALL)
• Honestly I think this is the first time they've paired these two?  It was certainly the first time I've seen them paired, so I was thrilled.
• Probably not the best version I've seen, but it was one of the few times Oteil got a lead tonight, so we all cherished it for that at least.  John and Jeff did have some good back and forth too.
• Not Fade Away > (ALL)
• No real jam back into this like back in the seventies, instead it just wound down until they started up the NFA beat again.
•  Bobby took a short little Wolf Bros-esque solo on the way back to the lyrics that sounded great, John providing shredding backing rhythm.
• Encore: The Weight 
• I figured we would get something soulful for the encore, but was expecting something more like Brokedown.  This was a pleasant surprise!
• Their arrangement of the song is great, very deliberate and mellow with a bit of an island groove.  John even took a little solo before the final verse!
• Everyone but the drummers got their own verse of the song, and the crowd (predictably) went nuts for Jeff singing.  He has a strong, gravelly voice that I feel could easily be put to a Brent song or two, but I'll take what I can get.  Everyone loved Oteil's verse too, but I felt a little bummed out that he didn't get to do a full song of his own this night.
• The song ended with a little call and response of "put your load" between Bobby and the crowd, which I've heard fall apart on other recordings, but worked great here, it felt cathartic.

     And that was it.  The band took their bows and departed, and suddenly we were bathed in the blinding stadium lights.  We were surprised to not hear One More Saturday Night, but we were in no position to complain about what we had just received.  This was one of the most amazing shows I've seen live, and I'm going to be listening back to it for a long time.  The first set had some hiccups, but the entire show was filled with top notch playing and surprising twists that kept everyone on their toes, onstage and off.  The crowd leaving seemed so content on the way out, and the lot was surprisingly quiet.  Everyone seemed to have burned up their energy at the show, and was just looking to get home comfortably.  I wish I was seeing more shows this tour, but if I was to see any of them, it would have to be this one.

Willie Nelson's Outlaw Music Festival (Ft. Phil Lesh), Darling’s Waterfront Pavilion, Bangor, ME, 2019-06-14

     Summer's here, and while everyone is focused on the Summer Tours of Dead & Company and Phish (more on those in the coming weeks), Phil Lesh is going on a mini tour of his own as part of Willie Nelson's traveling Outlaw Music Festival.  It's a rotating lineup, and this Friday he played in Bangor before moving on to Mountain Jam and then Connecticut.  We caught the Bangor show, since we have a place to stay with some family nearby, and what a show it was.  I'm mostly gonna focus on Phil since this is nominally a Dead blog, but the other acts were nothing to sneeze at!

     The venue is right between Main Street and the Penobscot River, which is a little weird, but also pretty cool when Phil plays Brokedown by the waterside (spoilers).  The stage faces a local bank's headquarters, and as the music started we could see them pulling down the shades and leaving for the day; hopefully a few of them came over for the music! Getting in was pretty easy, metal detectors in place but as long as you held everything in the air they didn't really care what you were holding.  I've been told that weed is legal in Maine, and this was a Willie Nelson concert, but the local cops all looked pretty suspicious of the crowd.  Maybe that was just because it was such a weird mix of people; local country fans, Heads from Canada, general music fans looking for an eclectic Friday in June, geriatrics hoping to find youth in Willie, and local kids hoping to see something cool.  It doesn't feel like it's meant to really operate at full capacity, but all in all everythingwent as well as could be expected, and it started out as a beautiful afternoon.

     We got down to our seats in the 7th row, and had some room to move down under a huge speaker stack right as Particle Kid was opening the show up.  Particle Kid was a weird act, featuring Micah Nelson (one of Willie's sons) on guitar with a drummer, a bass, and a guy who would wander on stage in a space helmet.  I would describe them as...Noise Grunge?  But with laser sound effects on the guitar and some looping sound textures.  They were definitely the loudest act of the night, which at first didn't mix well with the jitters of going into a concert, but by the end I was really enjoying them!  The elderly audience members didn't know what to think.  Following them was Lukas Nelson (Willie's other son) & the Promise of the Real.  Micah came out for this act too, and he and the bass player really clicked; at one point Lukas went to look at his bassist, and when he wasn't in his normal spot he looked over and found him and Micah terrorizing the drummer up on the edge of his riser.  They played some great pseudo-Southern Rock, with a little bit of jamminess here and there, a total crowd pleaser.

     The next act up was the Revivalists, who are on the poppier side of Alt Rock by my accounting.  They seemed fine, but now it's time for a digression.  We had eaten before going in, but I was feeling a bit peckish a few songs into their set so I went to grab a hot dog.  Easy, right?  Right??  Instead I spent the whole set waiting in line, marveling at how a modern music venue could handle crowds of people so poorly.  There were only portapotties for facilities (which were labeled with gender icons that got ripped off as the day went on), one place to get food, and huge lines impeding the flow of foot traffic everywhere you looked.  I made friends with some folks from Canada who I promised I would stop for Krispy Kreme on my way back to Boston, and I'm sorry to say I definitely lied to them (so sorry if you're reading this!), then eventually got back to the seats before Alison Krauss's set.

     Alison Krauss is a national treasure and everyone should listen to her.  Her voice is perfect, and she really knows how to put a band. together  One thing I was thinking about some of the earlier acts is that they don't really have control over the sound of their music; everything's turned up, and everyone's playing great, but it can all get lost in translation from stage to speaker.  Alison Krauss though (and Phil and Willie) has been around the block a few times and knows how to carve a song into the air in a way that lets every instrument and voice find its own space to be heard.  The set was a bit sleepy, and some of the folks who were too drunk or took their drugs too early were getting restless, but it was just so beautiful, especially with the sun starting to descend into some of the first clouds of the afternoon.

     The next act was Phil, and the Heads were starting to stand up, stretch, and otherwise make their presence known.  I didn't see the staff hassle anyone for milling about or smoking or vaping, they were mostly keeping folks from sneaking into the very front row and blocking the exits.  Phil took a bit to set up; Alison had a whole stage set-up involving fake windows and a street lamp that needed removal.  We hadn't known the lineup going into this, and were hoping for Jorma Kaukonen to join him, since he had just played with him at the Capitol Theatre, and was playing with him the next night, but instead we got: Grahame Lesh, Ross James, and Alex Koford, all on guitar and vocals; Rob Barraco, keyboard and vocals, Eliott Peck, vocals, John Molo, vapes and drums.  This is kind of a half and half of the Terrapin Family Band and the lineup Phil was playing with at the Cap and Mountain Jam, and it was awesome!  I got the feeling that they hadn't rehearsed too much, but they really didn't need to, every one of them has been playing this music with Phil for so long that they know the music better than almost anyone.  After Phil got his computers set to the appropriate settings the rest of the band came on, and it was showtime!  As of the time of writing there are no recordings of this show out, so I'm going from memory here.

• Jam >
• This wasn't exactly a jam, mostly just Ross James getting the band ready to play some blistering rock 'n roll.  Phil was looking excited, maybe he had been hanging with Willie backstage?
• New Minglewood Blues (RJ)
• The straight folks in the audience were looking a bit nervous about all this talk of stealing women and seducing the sheriff's daughter, but everyone else was dancing immediately.  Ross James has always been a bit of a talk-singer, which works great in blues songs, but his real strength is his guitar playing.  He and Grahame took most of leads this night, but Ross' were the ones that got the biggest crowd reactions.
• Instead of the the "couple shots of whiskey line" he sang something else that I can't...quite...remember...but it sounded great!
• Jack Straw (RJ & GL)
• This seemed like the perfect song for this crowd: an easier tempo, a little bit of country licks thrown in, some jams, and some hot leads.
• They really eased into this one, showing how comfortable they were as a band.  I couldn't really see Barraco from where we were, but the rest of the band was trading smiles all night.  Elliott came out for this one and heped round out the vocals.  She's part of Grahame's band, Midnight North, and while I'm not sure on her official status as a member of the Family Band, I certainly would hope to see her with Phil as often as possible.
• The "eagles fill the sky" line got some extra cheers due to an earlier bald eagle flying overhead, wondering who all these hippies were that were scaring away its prey.
• As is typical at this point in Dead music, this song was stretched out a bit more between verses, especially right before the "gotta go to Tulsa" line.  Ross really led this one as far as when they would jam and when they wouldn't, and he and Grahame brought it to a triumphant finish that involved a lot of fist pumping from the crowd...or maybe just me.
• Box Of Rain (PL)
• There had been a few people yelling "let Phil sing!" after Jack Straw, and while I don't think they determined this, Phil did follow it up with Box of Rain.  A few people (me and the heady couple in front of me) muttered "careful what you wish for," but Phil was singing great this night.  He did seem to forget a few words (smoking weed with Willie will do that to ya), but the lines he did sing rang true.
• They stretched this one out a bit after the solo section, like Phil normally does.  It didn't grow any teeth or get feedbacky at all, but instead made for some nice early summer cloud watching.
• Ramble On Rose (AK)
• Elliott came back out for this one, but it was Alex's turn to take a lead vocal.  He did some great work in the jams, but spent most of this night playing rhythm and singing harmonies.  He emoted really well here, and got some of the sitters to stand up and dance a bit.
• Ross and Grahame traded some amazing leads here, and Phil was loving it.  The Moon, not quite full, was peeking out behind the increasing clouds on our side of the stage by this point, making for an even more beautiful evening.
• Music Never Stopped (RJ & EP)
• This brought some much needed funk to the night, probably the most dancing in the crowd of the whole show.  They really jammed out the opening of the song too, which is a nice twist.
• Elliott handled Donna's parts with so much gusto the chick in front of me turned around to the elderly couple sitting next to me and yelled in their faces "SHE'S DOING THE DONNA PART!"  This couple had exhibited some Maine feistiness towards other exuberant folks throughout the night, but were at a loss as how to how to react to this exclamation and just slowly nodded.
• The first part of them unfolded nicely, mostly led by Grahame this time, but Barraco was providing excellent counterparts.  The shift into the second phase of the jam was the only rough spot of the set, and they recovered by letting Ross just shred his guitar to pieces until they brought the song to a close.
• Jam >
• At a typical Dead show I think most of the crowd would have known where this jam was going from the first 30 seconds, but it seemed like a lot of these people took at least that long to realize this wasn't just a tuning exercise.
• The Wheel (ALL)
• Ross started this one on a pedal steel, which I didn't know he played!  He switched back to his regular guitar halfway through, but I wish he had stayed on it more.
• Again, this one never really got scary or too far out, mostly staying adjacent to the usual theme in happier jams.  In classic Phil style, each verse was separated by another jam, instead of just going through them all at once.  They all forgot to repeat the "won't you try" refrain at one point and Phil cracked up; how do I get me some of that Willie weed?
• There had been no segue jams between the songs up this point, and I thought for sure this would be the song to break that trend, but no.  Instead they neatly wound it down into nothingness and stood back from their mics for a bit.
• Jam >
• The band engaged in some scheming and planning at this point, and then Barraco led them into a kind of Russian waltz kind of jam that everyone in the know could tell was leading into...
• Help On The Way > (RB)
• Barraco had contributed some great backup vocals so far, and I was surprised this was the only song he got to sing lead on.
• Even if this wasn't one of my very favorite songs, this still would've been the highlight of the night for me.  They were on fire at this point, and the musicians were shooting sparks off left and right.  It's not like there was a different arrangement or anything, the band was just so in tune to each other that any little accent or omission was carried out by the whole group.
• Grahame's solo might have been the best I've ever seen him play.  I thought each player would get one shot at the solo section, but instead Grahame just took it twice himself, and hot damn was it fire!
• Slipknot! >
• There seemed to be a little flub in the transition section leading to the Slip Riff, but the band hurdled over it and nailed the riffs.  Molo got to do the only real solo drum work of the whole show in the spaces between riffs, and then they finally went into a jam that got a little scary.  There was a lot of clanging chords and shredding lines, all while Phil boomed and swooped around the soundscape.  Grahame and Ross locked eyes right at the start and didn't stop looking at each other/shredding guitar in each other's faces until eventually the jam morphed into the Slip Cord and they made their way back to what we assumed was going to be the Slip Riff again.
• I Know You Rider (ALL)
• But instead, they drifted off into space until Phil started up a solid choogle that could have ended up in GDTRFB or Deal, but I correctly called as Rider.
• Not the most jammed out version of the song, I think due to time restrictions, but the band still played confidently.
• It had started to rain lightly sometime in Slip, so the "cool Colorado rain" line got some attention from the folks who didn't even know Jerry used to sing it.
• Brokedown Palace (EP)
• Elliott sang her heart out on this closing number, putting a soulful little bow on this festival set.
• Like I teased at the beginning, hearing this by a river really hit home, as cheesy as that sounds.  It wasn't just the lyrics and being next to a river though, it was the whole package of the performance; Barraco had finally moved over to the organ, the rain was clearing, and we were in the middle of a happy crowd; what could we do but enjoy it!

     That was it for Phil.  It looked like he was going to deliver a mini Donor Rap at the end, but instead walked off with the rest of the band.  My first Phil show with no Donor Rap??  We hung out for a bit waiting for Willie, with small rain showers coming and going the rest of the night.  He had a Donor Rap of his own, but it was about rescuing wild horses, which also seems noble.  He eventually came out, backed by a band that included both his sons, his sister, and some guys that I'm told are regulars.  The crowd was mostly standing for this one, and finally the smell of weed and vapes was freely blowing in the wind.  He played some favorites (Mamas, Don't Let Your Baby's Grow Up To Be Cowboys probably got the biggest sing-along) and some new songs, and everyone had a great time.  Lucas was his lead guitar and back-up singer, and certainly had his hands full, but everything seemed so relaxed and fun!

     He finished up with some time to spare before curfew, but that was it for the night.  I thought getting out of there would be a nightmare, but we were able to just walk right out and get back to the parking garage, then drive off into the clearing mist.