SHARING THE SHOWS
The original plan was a three-week hiatus from shows until September 10 (Dancing Bears at the Pearl Street Warehouse). But my Facebook feed had different plans. A free outdoor show that was Metro-accessible. I couldn’t NOT go. After the typical chaos that comes with the first week of classes and a Saturday spent evaluating student writing samples, I was ready to jam out. I pondered driving to the show, but was overruled by the fact that I just didn’t want to, and I couldn’t work my way around that. I’ve become lazy and spoiled by shows that are accessible by public transportation – what can I say? The joke was on me as we were alerted that some thief tried to escape cops by running on the tracks from the metro station at Rosslyn – apparently he made it about a mile and a half to Arlington Cemetery before he was caught. As a result, we were delayed by about a half hour. Good thing I brought TWO books for the trip. I got to the State Theater at about 8:15 (passing by some nice-looking restaurants in a neighborhood I’d never been at before), forty-five minutes after start time. They were in the middle of “Cassidy”; from what I gathered from my research, they had played “The Harder They Come” and “Althea”. They closed their set with “Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad.” Before I get into the second set, let me share a pet peeve, related to my research in Singles Studies. The State Theatre was charging $12 per PAIR to sit at a table in the area they had set up. What if you wanted to go as an individual? I was going to take a cue from the punks in Repo Man and think, let’s go to the show! And not pay! Of course, those of us with that attitude were relegated to the outside of the barricade and we were literally “dancing in the street,” or more specifically, Park Place. Many were on sidewalks but we took up the street too and occasionally had to move out of the way for slowly moving cars. And security really does get in your face when you try to walk over the barricade after the show to give the lead singer your business card so you can help with writing their website content, which said singer requested. Or so I, uhhhhh, hear. (Looks around). Ummmmmm, yeahhhhhhh… Anywho, a minor vent. The second set started with “Shakedown Street,” which was a nice jam. “Sugaree” followed, then “Scarlet Begonias” and “Fire on the Mountain”. “The Music Never Stopped” as next, which began with a “Deep Elem Blues” tease. When 9:10 rolled around, I was happy to hear the band was wrapping up (again, my inner introvert LOVES early endings to shows, as does my friend Heather, who was texting me from the metal show she was at). They closed with “Truckin’.” My fellow peons on the outside were cool. A young dude named Phil explained his surprise that the band didn’t reference that iconic show from 8/27/72 in Veneta, Oregon, exactly fifty years ago. I had been listening to that show all day at Pete’s suggestion. Two things: 1) I was surprised as well; “Sugaree” was the only song I heard that night from that show; and 2) I was very impressed Phil knew of that show. This music is transcendent. I also got several compliments on my Weather Report T-shirt, which is always a conversation-starter at shows. Cool people included another young spinner named Manny, a dude named Bill who observed Dead & Company only plays “Box of Rain” once per tour, and a guy named Larry who came to visit DC from North Carolina and just happened to find out about this show. Gotta love serendipity. The singer gave a plug for the restaurant next door, Clare and Don’s Beach Shack, which devotes Wednesday nights to Grateful Dead cover bands. That will definitely be a future venture. And I dug this sign: This was a good group. They didn’t rock quite as hard as the Warlocks (they were more of a noodley-Dead style), but Dead is Dead and free is free. I’d see them again.
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May 2024
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