A Tempo Beyond

Everyone remembers their first. It seems like only yesterday, because I remember it so well. My connection to the Grateful Dead came of the non-traditional manner. I was surely aware of them during my high-school days, but for whatever reason I spent most of my time deep in drug abuse, searching for anything that might circumvent the hole in my heart. I fell deep into bands like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, but I tasted barely a hint of the Grateful Dead.  A few years after high school and the subsequent debacle that followed, I found myself sitting outside during a damp and dreary winter day in Newport Beach, California. I was sitting anxiously on the abrasive cement fence, wondering why I was still alive? I was back in rehab again. Just a month before that I was betting frivolously at a roulette table, in God only knows what casino, somewhere amongst the wretched Las Vegas strip. I woke up one morning and realized I had to get out of there. I had a definite drinking...

Watching the news following night one at the Hollywood Bowl, featuring the infamous bomb scare, I found it comical the way the news anchor spoke, “Dead and Company featuring John Mayer encountered a bomb threat during their show tonight at the Hollywood Bowl. Dead and Company AND John Mayer were rushed off the stage…” We get it, John Mayer was there. We are all thankful John and his penis are safe.  Following the Pittsburgh show I was accosted by a couple of tie dye strangers in the elevator of my hotel. Being the kind chap I am, I asked what they thought of the show? To my surprise they both shrugged their shoulders and said some bullshit like, “it was ok”. I laughed and stumbled out of the elevator and went on to berate the pizza delivery guy for not bringing the pizza to my room. I must have forgotten I wasn’t saying at a Holiday Inn. If he only knew how bad that elevator experience truly was. “It was ok”, they said…  Four days later I’m still befuddled by...

3500 feet in the air, and on my way back to the Motor City. I had a hell of a trip, at times worrying I might fall off the rollercoaster ride. Up to this point, I seem to still be alive. As much as I want to write a review of night two in Boulder, I also wonder what I’ll say, because its not an easy story to tell. How many different ways can I tell you that Jeff Chimenti can make a man dance who’s never heard the Grateful Dead before? How do I explain such a wild turnaround from a surely shoddy night one in Boulder, into an absolutely rip-roaring dance party in night two? It’s sure amazing what a day will do! I wasn’t ready to write off the band after a slow start to the Boulder shows, but not in my wildest dreams did I expect such a turn around.   After a nice long freeze in the cryogenic chamber, Bob Weir came back into Folsom Field sounding better than ever. The band felt frenzied and eager to deliver a night that no one would forget anytime soon.  Set ...

Sometimes its hard to know how you feel about things. I came rocking into the mile high city, having been fortunate enough to see the band’s first six shows, skipping Utah and catapulting on in to Boulder. Walking around lot this afternoon I had a nice chat with a stranger from Austin, Texas. We got to talking about what shows have been the best and his overall sentiment regarding Dead and Company. He stammered on about how he heard the Hollywood Bowl shows have been the best thus far and I responded by stating how subjective the whole experience truly is. This subjective experience is really what makes the whole thing wildly beautiful. I walked away from tonight’s show angry with the company I keep and rather befuddled by the lackadaisical show the band put out. Beyond all that drama, I realized how much I love this band, because I am truly unable to hear criticism about the band, like I’m actually a fucking member. We begin shaping our experience of the show merely by the way ...

        Yes, it’s undoubtedly a money grab. Posters with dead bears, strung out on meth for $70  http://i.imgur.com/lbuOZEi.jpg , childish varsity style jackets for $300, even the hippies on shakedown street are gouging for a veggie burrito, minus the veggies of course, because the power hungry policemen shut them down.  Yes, there is tension in the band, Bobby yelling at Bill and Mickey time after time, in hopes they’ll keep the fucking time. It makes you wonder though, at some point you’d think Bob would realize his efforts are a lost cause. In Bob’s eyes they haven’t been able to keep the beat in over fifty years. Night two at Shoreline, during Fire on the Mountain, Bob’s belting out the line “takes all you got just to stay on the beat” while turning around and glaring, like Bill had sex with his daughter.  Yes, the boys are using the tour to settle down and pay for their imminent retirement, meanwhile paying for John Mayer’s next five...