Terrapin Crossroads presents Phil Lesh & the Terrapin Allstars, with Holly Bowling, Nathan Graham, Eric Krasno, Grahame Lesh, and Elliott Peck
the Backyard Stage in Beach Park at Terrapin Crossroads
100 Yacht Club Drive, San Rafael, CA 94901 USA
5:00 PM, Friday, April 23, 2021

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[5:08 PM] {Phil out to noodle with his rig for a minute or two, then off}
[5:24 PM] {everyone onstage: time to go! GL on ES-335 to start}

1. [5:26 PM] Sugar Magnolia (GL) »
2. [5:29 PM] Around & Around (GL) »
3. [5:37 PM] That's What Love Will Make You Do (EK)
4. [5:47 PM] the Wheel
5. [6:00 PM] They Love Each Other (EK)
6. [6:12 PM] Scarlet Begonias (GL) »
7. [6:24 PM] Sunshine Daydream
8. [6:28 PM] Mountains of the Moon (PL-EP)
9. [6:39 PM] St. Stephen (PL) »
10. [6:49 PM] Sugaree (EK-EP)
    [7:00 PM] {show ends; thanks and comments from Phil; band introduction; no donor rap; no encore; all done after a couple minutes}

• Holly Bowling: Yamaha CP4 keyboard, Nord Electro 5 keyboard;
• Nathan Graham: drums;
• Eric Krasno: guitar, lead & harmony vox;
• Grahame Lesh: guitar, lead & harmony vox;
• Phil Lesh: bass, lead & harmony vox;
• Elliott Peck: lead & harmony vox.

I appreciate that Phil has begun mixing things up with the players in the band: it makes things a little more interesting to wonder “how's that going to work out” and then listen to how the song renditions change from performance to performance.

As soon as the band led into Sugar Magnolia, I expected some sort of sandwich set. What really caught me by surprise was how early the transition came for the hop into Around & Around – maybe someone jumped the gun there? I'm pretty sure that they didn't get through all eight stanzas in just three minutes…

That's What Love Will Make You Do was another interesting surprise – possibly Phil's first cover of that soul chestnut from the Jerry Garcia Band repertoire? Nah… Setlist.fm tells me that it was the fifth. Digging deeper, I can see that I didn't attend any of the previous performances – no wonder I thought it was a breakout. How 'about them memory cells! Working just exactly right!

The energy level of the show jumped a bit with Scarlet Begonias, I know it got me juiced up and hopping around. Ending the sandwich by segueing into Sunshine Daydream caught me by surprise because it was “only” an hour into the set… Why would then start wrapping things up now? Maybe no particular reason except that's where they decided to put the reprise? Happily, that wasn't the end of the show!

Mountains of the Moon came off very well. No harpsichord sound that I can recall, instead Holly played using spacey, echoey, delayed piano, reminiscent of Richard Wright's sound from the classic Pink Floyd album Meddle. Worked well enough! Another interesting variation with this take was that Phil and Elliott traded vocals back and forth. I appreciate Phil's singing, but in the end, he's no canary. On the other hand, Elliott has a terrific voice, and it's a real treat to hear her interpretation of these tunes.

I'll end by making the same comment with regards to Sugaree. Eric Krasno is another fine singer, and the song would have sounded great if he took the entire vocal lead (as it's usually performed), but sharing the lead with Elliott made for a really interesting variation. I'd listen to that arrangement again!

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2021 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2021 event list! ☸ On to the next event!