SHARING THE SHOWS
So much for tampering down on the shows. Five days after that three-day Phish extravaganza, I’m at the Hamilton, getting psyched for Jazz is Dead. When I told my friend Steph about it, she said “Jazz is not dead!” And it’s not. It’s much very much alive, and this group puts a nice Grateful Dead spin on it. We’re currently in the “Days Between,” which lasts from August 1 (Jerry’s birthday) to August 9 (the day Jerry died). I’m thinking at least one Dead-related show during that time period will now be an annual tradition, as they have so many in the DMV. Last year, I did a twofer: Born Cross-Eyed on the 1st, Englishtown Project with Pete on the 7th. This year, I’d cut in half with just the one. Pete gets the photo credit for the ad below, placed above the urinal when he went for Keller Williams, but sadly, removed just for me. I got to the Hamilton at about 7:50, and I swear I saw the back of Pete’s head at a table near the dance floor. Then I heard Pete yelling at name from my right, saying “You walked by me!” Is my vision getting all screwy in my middle age?
I met his friends Steve, Mike, and Andrea; Andrea and I talked Dead and Company and the New York City landscape surrounding Citi Field. I had paid for the upper-level bar, so I was shuffling my spot around for much of the first set. And it was odd seeing Deadheads seated for a show, but that is the norm for jazz. I was a bit bummed out about the dance floor being closed, but as I was reminded, Deadheads can make a dance floor out of anything. They opened with “Halfstep” and went into “Eyes of the World.” The drummer went heavy on the cymbals, as is a feature of jazz, and there was some heavy bass that reminded me of a bass line from a song called “Life is a Traffic Jam,” which played over the closing credits of the film Gridlock’d, a very little-known flick but one of my favs. There was a tease of “Shakedown Street” that ultimately led to “China Doll.” That song led to an interesting exchange between Pete and I. He remembers hearing it live before its official release on From the Mars Hotel in 1974; he thought it would be on Wake of the Flood. I heard it on 1981’s acoustic album Reckoning, which I bought during a spree one summer day in 1999. I was just getting into the Grateful Dead (four years after Jerry’s death), and on a lunch break from my job selling suitcases in the Palisades Mall, I went to FYE and bought Reckoning, Shakedown Street, Skull and Roses, Live/Dead, and Go to Heaven. I’m sure they destroyed the heads on my CD player after a few hundred spins. It got me thinking about how his generation and mine went about discovering this beautiful music. No right or wrong ways, of course, but it’s funny to think about. I (and most everyone else) had been seated up through the end of “China Doll,” and I could see one of the waitresses giving me the side-eye as I sat on one of the steps below the table (not having paid for that section, I felt like I was at the children’s table in the restaurant). But that changed when “Franklin’s Tower” came on. One person started dancing, so I made my way toward the walkway near the area closest to the front, and did the same. A few others followed, and we filled in their instrumental set with the words “Roll away the dew.” During setbreak, I learned Steve had catered at a venue called Singer’s in Spring Valley, New York, just a five-minute drive from where I grew up (and where two of my cousins got married, one of which ended in disaster). I also met a dude named Brett, who was taking photographs of the show and is Steve Kimock’s housepainter. The second set consisted of more dancing. “China Cat” opened, followed by “Cumberland Blues” (I sang “A lot of poor men make a five-dollar bill, keep him happy all the time, some other fella’s makin’ nothin’ at all, and you can hear him cryyyyyyyy…”) The band then shuffled nicely between “Uncle John’s Band” and “Terrapin Station.” They closed with a song from the Mahavishnu Project neither Pete nor I could identify. But sometimes, a mystery can keep one on their toes. The band ended at 11; once again, I dig shows that end early. We ran into Pete’s friend Pam, a pot attorney who’s also friendly with Lisa, whom I met at the Last Rewind. She was in Williamsburg; I mentioned I used to live in Newport News, to which she responded, “I’m sorry.” Yeah, me too, but it was a step I had to take to get to DC. On the Metro home, I talked to a pair of friends named Marcy and Larry (whom I mistakenly assumed were a couple; check your assumptions, Craig). I could tell when they hugged before exiting at separate stops. But we chatted casually about bands we’d seen at the Hamilton. I was too hyped up to sleep, so I watched the season finale of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and afterwards, wrote up this post. Tomorrow’s a busy day with me checking in my friend, Tommy, who’s staying with me for the Beyonce show at FedEx Field. From there, I head up to Baltimore to see my Mets take on the Orioles with The 7 Line Army, totally different scene from tonight. But, as my therapist says, self-complexity is a good thing. Good night, everybody!
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