Terrapin Crossroads presents Phil Lesh & the Terrapin Allstars, with Scott Amendola, Holly Bowling, 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, Monday, April 26, 2021

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[5:03 PM] {Phil onstage for a few minutes of prep}
[5:21 PM] {performers out, now getting ready to rock! GL starts on his ES-335}

1. [5:22 PM] Bertha (EP)
2. [5:31 PM] Deal (EK)
3. [5:42 PM] Althea (GL)
4. [5:51 PM] West L.A. Fadeaway (EK)
5. [6:02 PM] Bird Song (PL) »
6. [6:14 PM] Eyes of the World (EP) »
7. [6:25 PM] Brown-Eyed Women (EK)
8. [6:35 PM] Shakedown Street (EP) »
9. [6:45 PM] China Cat Sunflower (GL) »
10. [6:50 PM] I Know You Rider »
11. [6:58 PM] Shakedown Street finale
    [7:02 PM] {show ends; thanks from Phil; donor rap; band introduction}

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

Last show of this month's ten? None scheduled for the future, as of now: be patient grasshopper!

It was windy and cold throughout today's set, I should have worn a thicker over-shirt (or at least one that didn't have A/C holes worn through in the elbows, doh!). Likewise, the abundance of high-altitude icy cloud cover didn't help temps at all, though it did lower the afternoon glare enough that I didn't need sunglasses today.

It was interesting that Elliott sang lead on more songs than usual today. Hard to pick a favorite from the three that featured her – they were all pretty good! Many of today's tunes seemed to be done at a faster tempo than usual. Shakedown, for example, was paced similar to the 1979 album's disco-funk prototype.

Eric did a fine job with the three tunes that he led – maybe going with his favorites? Or this being the third day, with those still left in his memory? My recollection is that he didn't contribute too much to the vocal harmonies today, especially during the last half hour, but that could simply reflect absence of my attention to the that detail.

The transition from Shakedown Street into China Cat Sunflower was interesting. By the time the band got to that point in Shakedown, it was pretty clear that they were venturing out in an unusual direction, the question on my mind being: “where to guys?” – answered somewhat definitively with the lilting China Cat lick by Graham. As it then took them at least a minute to get around to the vocals, I thought that left the jam potential of the China Cat » Rider portion under-investigated. Probably just as well: you can't stretch every tune into a 10-minute exploration.

Even though I'd noticed that the song hadn't been completed back when they segued out of Shakedown, I was surprised when Phil sauntered back into it at the conclusion of I Know You Rider. The pessimist side of me had been thinking that it was cold enough that they might stop before the nominal 7 PM curfew. I'm glad that the band saw through their plan to wrap things up ('cuz this was part of the setlist plan, which I didn't see until after the show), and I enjoyed the vocal interplay of Elliott, Grahame and Phil that preceded the big finale.

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!