SHARING THE SHOWS
So this week was back to normal for me now that the dossier wasn’t weighing on me. I wrote, taught, graded, and dealt with some widespread panic that comes with advising students on what courses to take for next semester. But the highlight would be this show, which was held exactly thirty years and one month to the day of the first ’89 Warlock show (10/8/89); gee, I WONDER if they planned it like that (thinks to self). And with that, I include a poem from the scene’s own Wes Snow. (Blows into pitch pipe):
Dead and Co Is a little slow Costs a lot dough That's fo sho But I know If I dont go I'll have FOMO Like a mofo Wes, you said it all, dude. Anyway, Maggie came by my place at 5:30, and we drove for about a half hour to the Mothership, normally a ten-minute drive without show or commuter traffic. The ride had Aoxomoxoa (I had to Google the spelling) for the soundtrack. Maggie was bummed the boys played her favorite, “St. Stephen” at Nassau this week, which meant the likelihood they’d play it this weekend would be small, so I decided to cheer her up (when she heard the opening notes, she checked her phone for that ring). Upon parking, we waited for fifteen minutes in the cold to get into the building. I tried to make some Dead-related puns to entertain the line, but no dice. But you can hear them: It’s cold, but no rain and snow. Not an easy wind, maybe black-throated. Will this wind just blow away? Fortunately, it got good reviews on the Dead & Company Facebook page, along with a “thanks for the Weather Report.” Maggie and I walked around the venue for a bit, and made some new friends, Tom (from Richmond) and Kathy (from Northern Virginia), both supercool folks; Kathy shared about her first ever show at the Coliseum in ’92 (I feel like I missed out by not getting into the Dead until after Jerry’s death). While I walking around, I saw a dude wearing a tiny fedora and a woman lying in what looked like some exotic yoga pose while texting, and I mused that one of the things I love about this scene is that you can just be who you are or who you want to be for the time you’re at the show, not like that “real world” place. Maggie and I had separate seats, so we split off. I sat next to a nice older couple from Richmond, Kathy and Wayne. Kathy was talking to me about the time she saw the Dead here back in the 80s and was having such a bad LSD trip she had to call her Dad to pick her up, and apparently, he was cool about it. Now that’s a cool father. A young lady named Crystal dropped her phone under the seat in front of us, and I helped her locate me. To thank me, she offered me a mushroom, to which I politely declined. The band opened the set with a few rockers: “Bertha,” “Good Lovin’” and “Shakedown” before launching into “They Love Each Other,” not a favorite of mine but they actually did pretty well with it. Next came one of my predictions, “Black-Throated Wind” and then “Mr. Charlie.” The band closed with “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleoo” (I almost wrote “Loser” in my notepad because their openings are very similar) and “Throwing Stones,” their tribute to the Commonwealth turning Blue, I suppose. After finding Maggie at setbreak, I indicated that there were a bunch of seats with plenty of dancing room by me, and not very close checking of tickets, so Maggie came to my section during Set 2, which opened with “Althea” and “Estimated Prophet.” “Eyes of the World” rocked, and when “Lady with a Fan” started, I said to Maggie, “I know Mark’s happy!” (He is to “Terrapin” what Maggie is to “St. Stephen”). “Drums” was actually pretty entrancing, and I debuted a new joke during “Space.” Phish’s “Say it to Me S.A.N.T.O.S.” has a lyric, “this is what space smells like,” so I thought it’d be cool to yell it out. I’d been looking forward to it all week; nobody would laugh, but I’d be entertained. I actually didn’t laugh at it, and that’s the ultimate litmus test. If I’m not laughing at my own joke, it’s a goner. Side note: when I mentioned on Facebook I’d be premiering a new joke at the show, Shawn commented “Does it involve a duck?” along with a link to this article about the “Hell in a Bucket” video, starring the boys, a duck, a bunch of bikers, and a woman in a dominatrix outfit. The video and the song are actually pretty cool metaphors for life. No matter how chaotic things are around us, we just have to do us. Shawn, thank you for turning me onto that. Jeff Chimenti’s keyboards in “Days Between” nearly had me in tears, and “China/Rider” rocked it out to end the second set. “Touch of Grey,” the closer, also has a nice message: even when we get something we want, there’s always a catch. All that matters is how we look at it. Getting out of the venue was a bit messy, but way easier than Bristow (about an hour and a half) and Big Cypress (nearly fifteen hours in traffic). During these shows, I always get clarity on certain things going on in my life, and last night gave me some answers. Looking forward to Round Two tonight!
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