Another Planet Entertainment presents Joe Russo's Almost Dead
Fox Theatre
1807 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA 94612-2109 USA
7:30 PM, Sunday, November 11, 2018

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[7:31 PM lights down, band out]

1. [7:32 PM] Space »
2. [7:46 PM] Lady With a Fan (TH) » Terrapin Station (?SM) »
3. [8:06 PM] the Other One (SM) »
4. [8:18 PM] Terrapin Transit » At a Siding (JR) »
5. [8:24 PM] Terrapin Flyer
   [set ends 8:32 PM]

[9:05 PM lights down,, band out]

1. [9:06 PM] Good Lovin' (SM) » very brief Shakedown tease »
2. [8:20 PM] Viola Lee Blues » [9:30 PM] jam with Hey Bulldog tease » [9:31 PM] Viola Lee Blues (3rd verse) »
3. [9:33 PM] Shakedown Street (TH) »
4. [9:44 PM] Let It Grow (SM) » jam »
5. [9:11 PM] (Walk Me Out in the) Morning Dew (TH)
   [set ends 10:30 PM; all off, back in 2]
   
   Encore
6. [9:33 PM] Not Fade Away
   [show ends 10:43 PM off; TH scrambles around to hand out setlists along the rail; done 10:45 PM; PA on, lights up: “Y'all scram!”]

Joe Russo's Almost Dead

• Marco Benevento: piano, keyboards, harmony vox;
• Dave Dreiwitz: bass;
• Tom Hamilton: guitar, lead and harmony vox;
• Scott Metzger: guitar, lead and harmony vox;
• Joe Russo: drums, vox.

After getting an unwanted Oakland welcome at our last Fox event, we decided to use Bart to get to tonight's show – Rockridge parking seems a bit safer for property management than downtown these days! On the other hand, it certainly added an additional cost and time-hassle to both ends of the evening. Will we do it that way again? Hard to say…

Anyways, we arrived at the venue shortly before 7 PM to find plenty of space, and a nice spot close to the rail in the pit in front of Tommy, but few familiar faces. Where was the usual crowd? Good question! No doubt, some of them simply showed up late, as we spotted plenty of friends on the way out, but my guess is that a lot of folks opted to skip the Sunday night show in favor of Saturday. I get that. JRAD is great fun, but despite the killer setlist, I didn't find the experience compelling enough to regret skipping the first night.

What are my complaints? Well, I'm sure you don't really want to read another cranky deadhead rant, so I'll simply state that I had a great time, but that one show was just fine for me, thank you very much.

Space was a really curious choice to open the show. Happily, most of the crowd around us in the pit were good listeners (or maybe the loud yahoos simply hadn't arrived by this point in the night?), and the band took a good long time to explore some creaky, fragile places in the musical spectrum.

Eventually they circled in on a regular tune, and Lady With a Fan opened up out of the chaos of Space. Very nice! As the JRAD take on Grateul Dead repertoire incorporates huge knowledge of other tunes, I got kinda distracted during the jam, and neglected to note when they arrived at Terrapin Station, or even whether it was Tommy singing or Scott. I indicated Scott above, since I seem to recall him stepping up to the mic, but that certainly could have been remembrance of his harmony effort instead of lead. I'm sure a recording will surface to analyze if anyone really cares!

Earlier in the set (during Space), I'd kinda noticed the 3-against-4 pacing that characterizes the Other One, so I was primed to hear it when the band segued in that direction from the jam leaving Terrapin Station. Yay! Here comes the magic bus!

Awhile later, the smoke cleared from the empty crater of my mind and I realized that we were headed back to Terrapin. Whooo-wee! I was especially surprised when Joe pulled the hanging mic over to sing the lyrics to At a Siding; I don't recall seeing him sing before tonight. The jam continued, and eventually wound down in meditative fashion: kind of like watching the train chug on down the tracks and out of town. Set break!

Thirty minutes later, the lights turn down and the crowd presses in close for the start of the second set. Folks are packing in somewhat tighter now than during the first set, but it's not particularly bad, just the mild irritation of being bumped and whacked by those dancing within reach. The yacking of yahoos who think that the middle of a show is a perfectly fine time to catch up on chit chat was significantly more annoying; fortunately, the talking didn't last forever. Somewhat more aggravating were the idiots who wanted to yell along with Tom during Morning Dew – most of the tune was performed as a really quiet duet with Marco, so this really upset the mood they were attempting to weave, but it's hard to fault folks for being overly enthusiastic. Right? No, I guess not. Next time I'm bringing ball-gags.

Turning from the distractions back to the performance, I thought the Hey Bulldog tease towards the end of Viola Lee Blues was a really cool surprise … thus the inclusion in my setlist. In retrospect, I'm certain I heard bits and snippets of several other tunes throughout the night, beginning as early as the latter part of the opening Space jam, but at the time, I wasn't feeling keen to stop and jot notes about every little musical tickle. Maybe I'll file a revised setlist if a recording of the show comes my way in the future.

Not Fade Away was a jolly choice to end the festivities, and like the first set, it wound down slowly rather than thundering to a climax; in this case, the audience picked up the slack a bit, chanting the NFA refrain awhile before the house lights and PA came up to indicate that tonight's entertainment was done.

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

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