SF Giants Grateful Dead Tribute Night - 50th Anniversary Celebration! SF vs Washington Nationals featuring Moonalice
2015-08-13
AT&T Park
24 Willie Mays Plaza, San Francisco, CA
7:15 PM, Thursday, August 13, 2015

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2015 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2015 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

[setlist swiped from the Moonalice site]

1. [Big Steve's Introduction]
2. Might As Well
3. Friend of the Devil »
4. Eight Miles High »
5. Stella Blue
6. High Five
7. Not Fade Away

[6:40 PM announcements, comments from Big Steve]

1. [6:43 PM] Deal
2. [6:46 PM] NFA »
3. [6:49 PM] Tease paté: Dark Star » St. Stephen » Scarlet Begonias » China Cat Sunflower »
4. [6:54 PM] GDTRFB »
5. [6:56 PM] NFA coda
   [set ends 6:57 PM]

More pregame nonsense:

• Inane interview with Bill Walton
  
• Presentation of a ceremonial check from the SFGiants foundation to Grateful Dead Charities with Annabelle, Mickey and Bill
• National anthem with Sunshine Becker (and moral support from famous backup singer, Bill Walton)
  
• Annabelle throws out the first pitch (a dirtball) to Sergio Romo

Later celebratory activities were remarkably limited. Nothing special during the breaks between innings or for the seventh inning stretch. Only a smattering of Dead tunes on the PA. Bah, Humbug!

• Jason Crosby: keyboards, harmony vox;
• Chubby Wombat Moonalice AKA Roger McNamee: guitar, lead vox;
• White Cloud Moonalice AKA John Molo: drums, harmony vox;
• Sir Sinjin Moonalice AKA Pete Sears: bass, harmony vox;
• Jesus H. Moonalice AKA Barry Sless: guitar.

Roger led the band through an insanely short pre-show set, cramming an impressive number of riffs into a very short span of time. Totally unlike the Grateful Dead, but perfect for corporate America trying to cash in on the Heads' fanaticism for all things Dead.

Hard to decide whether the GD fuckup award of the night should go to Ryan Vogelsong for giving up a homerun on the first pitch of the game or to the merch vendor who screwed up an order of thousands of t shirts. Both recovered a little. Vogelsong shut down the Nats for the next four innings to earn the victory, and his teammates put two runs on the board in the bottom of the first to ease our anxiety. The t shirts arrived at the park by the second or third inning, though they didn't quite match the advertised design, lacking the expected “GD 65.” Ting was gracious enough to go wait in line to pick ours up, so I got to stay and watch the game. Thanks, sweetie! And happily, the Giants earned a 3-1 victory, as the bullpen shut the Nationals down for the duration.

You can watch a video of one (or both?) Moonalice sets by visiting their website.

And a happy postscript: the other day I got an email from GDTS telling me to SASE them a large padded envelope – the Giants are going to make good and send out correctly printed shirts!

Sad post-postscript: sent off my SASE, never got anything back.

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2015 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2015 event list! ☸ On to the next event!