Like a Road Leading Home: Celebrating Jerry Garcia with Oteil Burbridge, Lady Chi, Tom Hamilton, Jackie LaBranch, Melvin Seals and Duane Trucks at the Warfield, January 12, 2019

Goldenvoice/AEG Live presents Like a Road Leading Home: Celebrating Jerry Garcia featuring Oteil Burbridge, Tom Hamilton, Gloria Jones, Jackie LaBranch, Melvin Seals, and Duane Trucks
the Warfield
982 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94102-4012 USA
7:30 PM, Saturday, January 12, 2019

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[8:32 PM lights down, band onstage]

1. [8:33 PM] (I'm a) Roadrunner (TH)
2. [8:41 PM] Gomorrah (OB)
3. [8:51 PM] Run for the Roses (TH)
   [Girls off]
4. [8:57 PM] Mystery Train (OB)
   [Girls back]
5. [9:04 PM] Tore Up Over You (OB)
   [Girls off]
6. [9:12 PM] Stella Blue (OB)
   [Girls back]
7. [9:20 PM] That's What Love Will Make You Do (MS)
8. [9:30 PM] Midnight Moonlight (TH)
   [set ends 9:39 PM]

[10:11 PM lights down, band out]

1. [10:12 PM] Shakedown Street (TH) »
2. [10:26 PM] Expressway to Your Heart (Girls)
   [Girls off]
3. [10:34 PM] That's Alright Mama (TH)
4. [10:42 PM] Bird Song (OB)
   [Girls back]
5. [10:56 PM] Lay Down Sally (TH)
6. [11:05 PM] Lonesome and a Long Way From Home (TH)
   [Band introduction by Tom and then Melvin]
7. [11:20 PM] Like a Road (OB)
8. [11:34 PM] Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (TH) »
9. [11:45 PM] Shakedown Street reprise
   [set ends 11:48 PM]
   
   Encore
10. [11:51 PM] Mission in the Rain (TH)
    [show ends 12:00 AM; curtains! Annabelle Garcia and a stage tech fling roses into the crowd afterwards]

• Oteil Burbridge: bass, lead and harmony vox;
• Lady Chi: lead and harmony vox;
• Tom Hamilton: guitar, lead and harmony vox;
• Jackie LaBranch: lead and harmony vox;
• Melvin Seals: piano, Hammond B-3 organ, keyboards, lead and harmony vox;
• Duane Trucks: drums.

Tonight marks the second time of late that I manage to arrive at BART just in time to miss a train bound to SF: maximizing my wait time is NOT the routine I want to establish for 2019! Twenty minutes later (ugh!) I'm on my way, and end up arriving at the Warfield a little after 6 PM. The line is quite short at this point – no more than 20 or 30 people – and happily, Carrie hollers at me to join her in line, yay! Much better than standing all alone for 30 min! Chit-chat makes the time run quickly, and soon enough we're on our way inside. I'm surprised to see how many people are already present – maybe CID VIP tickets or something? – but with a bit of friendliness, I'm granted an ideal spot – first tier drink rail, just to the right of center. Yassure youbetcha bygolly wow! Gonna be a good time tonight!

After ten or fifteen minutes for the initial rush, things settle down, and I'm surprised to note that it's quite mellow for the next 30-40 minutes. Maybe the other hard core fans are over at the Fox for SEVA or somewhere else? In any case, it's fairly pleasant hanging out, making new friends, and otherwise just chilling until show time.

By the time the band comes on, nearly an hour later than the advertised start time (what's up with that?), the house is pretty full, and while the pit appears to have dancing room along each of the side walls, the crush in the middle makes it nearly impossible for folks to move up or down the aisle stairways. Makes me really happy that I opted for the 1st tier instead of trying to get a spot on the front rail.

Set One takes awhile to get cooking, but the band is at full boil once they get going on that Mystery Train boogie, and I become a dancing fool. Good thing there's enough room for me to throw my bones around! Stella Blue takes me by surprise as the “let's settle things down” number … what's a Grateful Dead song doing in a Jerry Garcia Band tribute? Oteil does a great job with it, of course, and the crowd laps it up, but it seems to me something like seeing pasta bolognese in the noodles section on a Thai restaurant menu.

Clearly, the assembled crowd is not so picky, and they greeted the mighty Shakedown Street that opens the second set with joy and abandon. I might seem like a curmudgeon for repeating my complaint, but I'll admit that it was fun, and it definitely got the crowd going again. The segue into Expressway to Your Heart was super smooth, but most of the crowd didn't seem to follow the change. Ah well, at least the band kept on blazing!

The rest of the set had me dancing so hard that I hurt myself. Getting old just sucks, sometimes! Gotta try hard not to lose my mind, I guess. I was a little surprised at the set-closing reprise of Shakedown Street – seemed like an unnecessary choice to me – but I suppose that's the sort of thing that comes out of trying to be clever when putting together a setlist in advance. I'm not trying to say the segue was forced or awkward (it was far superior to the typical Weir-led left turn), but to me it came off as a calculated move: let's whip up the crowd one more time with this little trick that we learned.

During the band introduction late in the show, we finally heard explanation that Gloria Jones was out sick. I'm all for making substitutions so that the show can go on, but I think it would have been friendlier to the crowd to acknowledge the change at the start of the when the curtains lifted. Anyways, I'm sorry that we missed her, and I hope she gets well soon!

I was happy that the night closed with something sweet. Mission in the Rain is a great “hometown” tune to me, even though I've never lived there. And of course, seeing as the lyrics evoke the hope coming on Sunday tomorrow, it's a perfect closer to a Saturday night show!

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2019 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2019 event list! ☸ On to the next event!