Dead & Company at Oracle Park, July 14, 2023

Giants Enterprises presents Dead & Company
Oracle Park
24 Willie Mays Plaza, San Francisco, CA 94107 USA
7:00 PM, Friday, July 14, 2023

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2023 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2023 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

• Drums
• Drone
  (Long time gap… I probably missed a bunch of songs)
• Fire on the Mountain

[6:53 PM] {short drone blast – probably just a random blip from the PA, but still kind of surprising to get your chest rattled}
[7:07 PM] {scattered cheers for Mickey as he makes a brief appearance}
[7:19 PM] {performers out}

1. [7:20 PM] Not Fade Away
2. [7:26 PM] Shakedown Street (JM/BW)
3. [7:39 PM] Cold, Rain & Snow (JM)
4. [7:46 PM] Ramble on Rose (BW)
5. [7:55 PM] Brown-eyed Women (JM)
6. [8:03 PM] New Speedway Boogie (BW)
7. [8:14 PM] Wharf Rat (BW)
8. [8:28 PM] Don't Ease Me In (JM)
   [8:34 PM] {set ends}

[9:07 PM] {lights down, announcements, performers out}

1. [9:08 PM] China Cat Sunflower (BW) »
2. [9:17 PM] I Know You Rider »
3. [9:28 PM] He's Gone (BW+JM) >
4. [9:42 PM] Scarlet Begonias (BW) »
5. [9:52 PM] Fire on the Mountain (OB) » (front off)
6. [10:00 PM] Drums: MH immediately at the beam » [10:02 PM] {add OB, MH at back line} » [10:08 PM] {drop OB; MH to beam} » [10:09 PM] {drop JL} » {10:14 PM] {drop MH, drone continues; front line out within 30 sec} » Space » (noodling reminiscent of Lost/Saint suite) » drummers back…
7. [10:20 PM] Mashup!: Dark Star/Cumberland/Lovelight jam »
8. [10:26 PM] Standing on the Moon (BW) >
9. [10:35 PM] Casey Jones (JM)
   [10:43 PM] {set ends}
   
   Encore
10. [10:45 PM] U.S. Blues (BW/JM)
11. [10:51 PM] Knocking on Heaven's Door (BW)
    [10:59 PM] {show ends}

Dead & Company

• Oteil Burbridge: bass, drums, lead & harmony vox;
• Jeff Chimenti: piano, Hammond B-3 organ, keyboards, harmony vox;
• Mickey Hart: drums;
• Jay Lane: drums;
• John Mayer: guitar, lead & harmony vox;
• Bob Weir: guitar, lead & harmony vox.

David Vineberg lets us crash his front of line spot again: what a mensch! Line duty today is remarkably mellow until 4:15 PM or so when the vibe turned nervous and grouchy. I did my best to slough off the bad energy, and lucked out as I become the fifth or sixth person from the GA cohort to get through the entry clusterf#@k into the concourse for the speed walk out to the floor. Ended up in a primo spot: straight out from Jeff's B-3 organ, maybe 25 ft back from the front. Would have been nice to be more centered, but beggars can't be choosers, and there are way more VIP folks up front here than there were in Boulder!

6:20 PM and the floor scene is still remarkably loose. I guess folks are planning to crush in at the last second? Or maybe they're all stuck in Friday afternoon traffic? Weird!

An hour passes, just chilling with the nearby peeps, and then Blammo! Suddenly it's showtime! NFA is a terrific statement to open the show, and I'm grooving hard right away. Shakedown Street to follow is less to my liking, but the party people around me seem enthusiastic, and I'm not going to quibble over song choices. The set passes agreeably enough, and then I'm surprised to hear an unexpected first set bust out: Wharf Rat? Really? I'm gob-smacked! Nice changeup! Don't Ease Me In as set closer is always gonna be an awkward one in my estimation. Of course I'm glad to get one more tune, and even more so to get an up-tempo rocker, but all in all, it's never going to be a song I'm hoping to hear, even when Mayer is slaying on the rave up section.

Set break is a nice respite, and I jackknife myself into a restful position, cradled by my ancient Crazy Creek camp chair. Relief!

40 minutes later it's time to pogo for the China Rider opener, another of my favorite combos, yay! The guys are on fire tonight – ain't no slackers on stage – and after a killer drumspace they segue into an amazing instrumental mashup of Dark Star and what sounds to me like Cumberland Blues. Whoa! Where'd that come from? More please! I want my mind blown again!

The rest of the show is solid gold, particularly with a double encore, yeah baby! The lights come up and we rally the troops for a quick exit: time for a race walk back to BART! We do our best to beat the crowd, and luck out with the train schedule, descending the long escalator at Montgomery to find an eastbound train waiting for us. Just exactly perfect! Seconds later we're zooming under the bay, towards West Oakland: how about that for a happy ending to the first night's festivities?

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2023 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2023 event list! ☸ On to the next event!