Terrapin Crossroads presents Phil Lesh & the Terrapin Family Band with Bob Weir
Terrapin Crossroads Bar
100 Yacht Club Drive, San Rafael, CA 94901 USA
8:00 PM, Monday, March 6, 2017

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2017 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2017 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

[8:28 PM lights down, band out]

1. [8:32 PM] Uncle John's Band
2. [8:43 PM] Loose Lucy (BW)
3. [8:54 PM] Mississippi Half-step Uptown Toodle-oo (PL)
4. [9:05 PM] Gonesville (BW)
5. [9:12 PM] Shape I'm In (RJ)
6. [9:16 PM] Good Love (BW)
7. [9:25 PM] Not Fade Away
   [set ends 9:34 PM]

[10:08 PM band out]

1. [10:11 PM] New Potato Caboose (PL) »
2. [10:19 PM] Born Cross-eyed (BW) »
3. [10:22 PM] Bertha (GL) »
4. [10:31 PM] New Speedway Boogie (GL)
5. [10:45 PM] Loser (AK)
6. [10:54 PM] Lay My Lily Down (BW)
   [+Nicki Bluhm: vox]
7. [11:01 PM] the Music Never Stopped (BW/RJ/NB)
   [-NB]
8. [11:10 PM] Ripple
   [set ends 11:15 PM; thanks from Phil, no donor rap]
    
   Encore
9. [11:17 PM] Johnny B. Goode (BW)
   [show ends 11:22 PM]

• Nicki Bluhm: vox (s2t07);
• Jason Crosby: keyboard;
• Ross James: guitar, lead and harmony vox;
• Alex Koford: drums, lead and harmony vox;
• Grahame Lesh: guitar, guitar, lead and harmony vox;
• Phil Lesh: bass, lead and harmony vox;
• Bob Weir: guitar, lead and harmony vox.

Word that Weir would be sitting in with Phil tonight was posted around 10 AM and the chatter began soon thereafter: who's going? how early do we need to get there? how long is the line? etc.

Ting and I pushed a few things around on our work schedules, and made plans to meet at 4:45 PM; I tried hard, but ended up being about 10 minutes late. Too much to do! And you know, traffic! Anyways, we zip across the Richmond Bridge into Marin county and arrive at TXR shortly after 5 PM. I drop Ting off, then cruise slowly for a parking spot, and luck out when one opens up along the alleyway leading to the San Rafael Yacht Club. Score! At this point there are about 60-80 heads waiting in line in the back porch area to be given wrist bands for admission to the club. Spirits are high – everyone's excited about a free show with Phil and Bob – but it's a cool day, and the sun will be setting soon.

Thanks to Ting, we're banded and released, and soon find a spot to wait for the show in front of the stage: only three hours until showtime! We spend the time relaxing and visiting with our neighbors. Getting to know new friends and sharing memories of past good times with old friends. It's a long wait, but the scene stays quite relaxed. As time goes on, the restaurant grows more and more crowded, but happily, the front doesn't get too crushed: the gills attending tonight might be hard core, but they're kind!

Finally, the band comes out to play, and after a few minutes of noodling, they're off! UJB is a nice opener, and despite a bit of vocal uncertainty (how does that song go?), the boys are clearly happy to be playing with each other and for us. Weir surprises me mid set with Gonesville – I guess I didn't expect that his new tunes would be joining the rotation – but it's clear that the band has rehearsed the tune well enough, and a few folks in the crowd really go bonkers over it. Good Love, later in the set, is performed as a mashup of the early (60's) and late (80's) versions. Bob didn't seem quite ready to deliver the rap section; must be trouble roping in those stray neurons: get along little doggie! NFA was a sweet closer, and all too soon, the first set was over.

Time for more waiting! It had become quite crowded during the set, but happily, people drifted away at break, and soon enough we had room to sit and relax. Yay! Standing about for hours hasn't been my thing for a long time. Thirty minutes draw by and soon it's time to stand up and dance again: the band is back onstage!

Again, the set begins with some abstract noodling, and then whammo!, Phil steps up to the mic and begins to sing: Last leaf fallen… – holy crap! It's New Potato Caboose! What an unexpected thrill! The band does a really solid job with this tune, they must have practiced the strange cross-current singing quite a bit to bring it to life so well. Hopefully it stays in the rotation. Classic psychedelic Dead! And they follow it up with Born Cross-Eyed, oh boy! By and by they bring things down a bit and somehow Bertha percolates out of the end jam. Graham takes over vocal duties on this and the following tune, New Speedway Boogie, which seems to invite an inordinate amount of sing along from the audience tonight. Perhaps a way of relieving angst about the current political situation? “One way or another, this darkness got to give…”

Graham (or Ross?) tucked a Smokestack Lightning tease in there about half-way through Speedway, but either Bob didn't catch it or they consciously stuck to the game plan, and after swinging through the end of Speedway, they stopped briefly, then Alex took the lead for Loser. It was interesting watching him sing and play drums with his eyes closed: just a way to concentrate on the task at hand? Probably should have asked him about it after the show.

Next, Bobby treated us to another new tune, and Nicki Bluhm jumped up onstage for an interesting version of Music Never Stopped: musically, it was the same old arrangement, but vocally, it seemed to me as if they juggled the usual delivery pattern so that the lead swapped between Bob, Nicki and Ross. I'd like to hear it again – hopefully the house was recording the gig like they do for the Grate Room shows.

Bob seemed a little unprepared for the new, fast arrangement of Ripple: they probably ran through it once or twice, so it's not like he was totally lost, but he appeared to be having trouble keeping up with the pace lyrically: he couldn't spit the right words out fast enough! Thankfully, the rest of the group was ready to pick up the slack. I'm not sure the problem will be apparent with a later listen: the cue for me was the dazed and confused look on Weir's face as the lines and verses slid by… the man drowning in a turbulent river who reaches again and again for a handhold on a rock or branch, only to be swept along helplessly by the current.

Closing the show with Johnny B. Goode took me back to those halcyon days of Grateful Dead shows: JBG was always the rockin' cherry on a groovy encore. Jason did a good job with the Johnnie Johnson keyboard runs. It's always fun to hear a bit of roots rock mixed in with the more abstract jams!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2017 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2017 event list! ☸ On to the next event!