My sense is that casual fans, on the other hand, would single out penultimate song “Sugar Magnolia” as the high point, if not because it’s the one song they recognized than because they were amused by the animations of flying eyeballs and banjo-playing turtles against a pink-purple sky.įor me, though, I’d go back to my original point about Weir: All that really matters is that he didn’t embarrass himself.Īgain, I’m not knocking him. Went berserk for all 14 minutes of the extended funk fest that was “Shakedown Street,” which opened the show, and never sat down (though they perhaps wandered during meandering second-set staple “Space,” a nightly 10-ish-minute exercise in experimental noodling that can seem, to some, like time better spent on visiting the restroom). Primed to have The Best Experience Ever, even if this was their 30th time seeing some form of The Dead. Paid a premium for their ticket, for a sold-out show, for a “last-chance” tour. My sense is that hardcore fans, for instance, would have struggled to have a bad time Tuesday night no matter what. people-watch - if not for the fact that I then proceeded to go inside the venue, where the pickings were equally plump. This would have been the best opportunity to soak up the vibe of fans at the event - i.e. There, hundreds of fans wearing tie-dyed shirts and reeking of a particular green herb milled around the famous (infamous?) “Shakedown Street,” an almost-overwhelming collection of rows and rows of vendors that springs up outside every Dead & Company concert - and that is at once endearing and disturbing.Īlong with the Middle-Eastern food stand selling “Philafel With Hummus” and the T-shirt tent hawking ones screen-printed with “Jerry Loves You” are seedier folks: roving salesman offering “gummy bears” of unknown origin random dudes with card tables, handles of well vodka, and pieces of paper with “$5” scribbled on them and eerily cheerful strangers, at every turn, looking from their outfits like they stepped out of a time machine that just arrived from 1970 and holding up one finger, in the hopes that someone would shove a ticket to the show into the hand that finger belonged to.
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