Phil Lesh & Friends
8/8/98 - The Fillmore Auditorium
San Francisco, CA


It's Up to You...-> 
Dark Star...-> 
Jack Straw 
Friend of the Devil 
Broken Arrow 
Bird Song

Shakedown Street-> 
Unbroken Chain-> 
The Other One...-> 
The Wheel-> 
jam-> 
Milestones-> 
...The Other One-> 
China Cat Sunflower-> 
I Know You rider

Like a Rolling Stone


...surprisingly (or not, because hometown) cry of recognition 
at the first melodic notes of It's Up to You, a favorite
instrumental Zero fans compare to Dark Star - a quintessential
Kimock improv tune, delicate calypso, and its appearance here
feels to be a gesture of respect, a nod to Steve and his fans,
and I am brought to feel in some way that my last two years
seeing Zero whenever and wherever possible now make a kind of
perfect sense. The stream flows back into the river, both
tributaries of each other. On the way out after the show (I never
got a poster, either night) I flowed by Bobby Vega, or rather he
by me as his charisma carried him faster through the crowd. I
waved to him, in fact, not that he knows me - of course he nodded
graciously and I found myself wondering had he just this week
taught Phil the bass part from It's Up to You? How had he felt
watching this other band play that song?

It's Up to you contains spacey improv, sometimes wraps around
other songs, so I consider this one incomplete (no reprise),
hence the ellipses in my setlist above, and I seriously listened
for it to possibly return throughout the set. When it gave way to
Dark Star, the audience exploded with pleasure, not for the last
time that night. This is the goddamn Fillmore, remember, a carven
festooned temple/tomb of a tin can, tight quarters for such
mighty mighty transcendence. I was a biscuit toss from the rail
near Kimock's amps (and monitors! no earpieces needed here in an
actual *room*).

So I'm listening to the tape now, for the second time through
(or, should I note, I *was* when I first penned these words)
actually today, dubbing it now for the first person I promised
(they just finished Jack Straw but I can't write that fast.) The
tape sure helps me remember my impressions though, almost like
magic. The audience vibe is thick on the tape. I must pause and
listen or I'll never be able to get down anything about Dark Star
or the vocal shenanigans that started during Jack Straw. Never
noticed how similar those two names are. Jark Stra. What I
remember most, indeed, about the Dark Star, was that the vocals
never came, but twice I expected them, almost as on Pink Floyd's
Shine On You Crazy Diamond, where the first feint toward a vocal
break is taken - surprise - by the sax, and then the guitar, and
finally the vocals. Except that this Dark Star, full fledged as a
pre- first verse segment, never did give way to the verse itself.
Instead the jam veered off and among ourselves we argued that it
might be Black-Throated Wind (me) or Looks Like Rain (them), but
Bobby has a way of opening with his openers, even three songs
into the set, and Jack Straw it was.

It appears that they had rehearsed Ellis on the Jerry verses,
though Bobby stepped up instead and sang the first one, adding
"you're singing this" to the end. Next time around, Bobby still
had to take it as far as "first train we can ride," but Ellis did
jump in and revealed a clear boyish voice, with a slight nasal
tone to it "one ode score, one small point of pride." The
contrast of his timbre and the affection for the lyric audible in
his voice lit up an instantaneous cheer for him pinch hitting
this way. All night there was good cheer for the vocal efforts,
which ranged from sublime to ridiculous.

As when in Friend of the Devil (on which both Bobby and Steve, as
far as I could see, played acousitc guitars) when Weir's well
phrased styling of the vocals lost its way in the second verse
"ran down to the levee, uh shit..." saved - but only for a while
- by singing "spent the night in Utah in a cave up in the hills"
accompanied with gusto by the audience. Next time around he
starts again into "ran into the devil & he loaned me twenty
bills, uh" and realizes that he's got to spend the night in Utah
once again. More laughs and the sense that he's blown it now and
no reason to be hard on the poor chap. Utah haunts him one final
time when he sings "Got a wife in Utah babe and one in Cherokee."
I do like his phrasing on this song, except perhaps on the
choruses.

I liked Broken Arrow a lot in the latter days of the Dead, and I
miss the vocal backing on this version, but it still brought back
fond memories. It's a great love song. I held onto B and
listened. Who else, Phil asks, is going to bring a bottle of
rain, answering his own question. Bird Song was fabulous,
returning to the mode of the beginning of the set. There was at
least one strong Dark Star tease and a very open direction before
the return of the melody. The song threatened to fly off into
something else entirely. The Ratdog wing of the band played down
the "shack-oooh" lick they play through the second part of the
song's main riff.

During the break more and more people insinuated themselves up
close where we'd been standing the whole time. I was standing
next to Don from the net and he commented at one point something
like "first they come and stand in our space and now they're
talking over the music?" One particular young fellow was kinda
gangly and not as respectful of my personal space as I'd like,
but I was determined to share the space as well as possible and
just enjoy the show.

The band came back out and immediately started jamming. It was
not at all clear what they were getting at, and the first hints
of Shakedown that came were from the heavy bass down beat, not
the signature guitar deedles (or, until they really launched into
it, Bobby's space-age chicken-scratching embellishments). When
they did hit Shakedown, they hit it hard. Musically, I was in
ecstasy. Somehow this late '70s funk and disco inflected song
seemed perfect for this band of psychedelic veterans and latter
day fusioneers. I thought Bobby sang the lyrics really well, for
the most part, with conviction, and the backing vocals were right
in there, as far as I can remember.

Unfortunately, my new friend was a tad overexcited about the
whole deal. First he started jumping up and down, without taking
care to avoid my feet. Then his flailing limbs starting smacking
my girlfriend upside the head. We all sang the words to Shakedown
together and I didn't lose my smile, but I was close to giving
the guy a friendly bearhug and asking him to chill. The first
thing I tried was succinct: Dude, contain! Then I suggested that
he bump into *his* friends (he and three female wookies had come
together, so why wasn't he ever bumping into any of his
girlfriends?). Finally, I rearranged our positions so that I was
between Briggs and the guy who could not contain his joy. I
thought about how I'd handled myself in various mosh pits over
the years, some friendly and open, some dark and defensive. I
decided I would face away from the stage and dance with B to this
incredible Shakedown that just kept going and going. I tell you
the funk was thick! I felt like we were at a Meters show there
for a minute, as we danced snaking our limbs this way and that.
In the end, I'm afraid this version may have toppled my previous
in-person favorite: 6-30-85, and that's saying something. I
should note that this was a very different jam, different feel.
After the reprise, deftly done, Bobby switched to his acoustic
guitar, without missing a beat, and they turned a corner into

Unbroken Chain! At last. Phil named his foundation after this
song. It already carries all that voodoo baggage. I half-expected
them to break it out a 2/27. Then I realized, it ain't easy. I'd
caught one of the better, if not the best, versions in '95, the
one at Shoreline, and even it was tentative, labored, a weary
triumph. This time, there was no hesitation at the threshhold of
each new section, and Phil sang it beautifully. Yes, he muffed a
few lines but he really put the song across for me. I was
consumed with a vision. Certain lyrics in the song put me in mind
of the Beats (specifically, "they say love your brother/but
you'll catch it when you try" and "ride you out on a cold
railroad/and nail you to a cross") - and I realized that Bobby
Petersen, who wrote the song's lyrics, was another of those
figures who bridged the old North Beach Beat scene and the
Haight-Ashbury Hippie moment. Suddenly, I understood the image of
the unbroken chain, heard the lyrics as a manifesto, a claim to a
great lineage, a shadow culture, a loyal opposition down through
the ages. Here the beat went on. My vision had other corridors.
Some of the stuff I saw then is in the works even now. What a
fabulous medley to start a set with!

I very carefully list a segue from Unbroken Chain to The Other
One (finally, after more than teasing it all throughout the
previous show) because beneath the cheers at the end of the song,
you can hear that they do not stop playing and that Bobby
actually leads a transition into the Other One on his acoustic
guitar before switching back to the electric.

The sequence of Other One -> Wheel brought to mind the '76
Orpheum shows. They used the weirdness on Bobby's vocals as with
the Dead. The backing vocals were strong, Weir's "y'all" still
incongruous. Somewhere in here, the interlopers decided the space
wasn't kind enough for them and they retreated to elsewhere. The
entire section sort of shrugged with relief. I said to Nick, who
at one point had interposed one of the Seussmuffins between her
male friend and himself, "there's nothing wrong with that guy
that a few tranquilizers and some eau de cologne wouldn't fix."
Later I wished I had said "eau de patchoule" as I reported in the
Pigs in Space thread on the Zero Mail list.

When the Other One jam after the first verse began to hint at and
then clearly go into the Wheel (always one of my favorite songs,
almost always the harbinger of a good set), I remembered the
Mardi Gras MMF show here in '96 was it? No, it must have been
'97, right? When they'd played the Wheel out of All You Need is
Love. Something I wrote then about Kimock's guitar playing has
carried with me as a continuous thread through to now.

And yet, you can only stand near the rail for so long, and I
decided to make a break for the bathroom. The trippiesque
camaraderie in there was fun and the music actually sounded
pretty good everywhere, even in the stall. It took most of the
vocal part of the song for me to strive my way back, but there
was something uniquely satisfying about swimming upstream through
the tightly dancings throngs as we all sang together "bound to
cover just a little more ground." The vocal blend from the stage
was especially good at this point. It felt cathartic to me. The
Wheel gave way to a distinct jam with its own character. Nick and
i looked at each other. Were we going to get a Up to You reprise?
Other Zeroheads later told me they'd heard hints of Tangled
Hangers, but listening to the tapes, I think that's just because
of the occasional appearance of a guitar harmonic that sometimes
signals the lead-in to that song.

I didn't know the jazz tune by name but I knew I'd heard it. The
important thing is they knew it. This was no lame gesture. I
turned to B and said "Suddenly we're in Yoshi's" (the jazz club
in Oakland where we most recently saw Pharoah Sanders). The
rendition of what I was later told was Milestones (technically
the track listed as "Miles" on the Milestones album) was
absolutely beautiful, sensitive, the guitar echoing the horn, and
the fusion was seamless. The audience was carried right along. 
Remember how Ornette said he was jealous of the Dead's audience?
How trusting, how carefully listening? and jesus shit we were in
the Fillmore and dang they seemed to be having a ball
themselves... and the stage sound was back!

The Other One reprise brought us back to familiar ground, though
I'll never get used to Bobby singing "It rainbowed and exploded,
left a bus stop in its place," when "trembled and exploded" is
such a better lyric, with its lysergic and erotic overtones. The
reappearance of Cowboy Neal tugged again at the wires running
through my brain down along those cold railroad ties south of the
border where he finally gave out.

As I mentioned with the beginning of the Other One, there was
likewise a continuous segue into the beginning of China Cat. As
we already discussed on the net, the introduction and arrangement
of the song have evolved, and keep changing slightly. This is all
to the good. Some of my friends didn't believe they were hearing
China Cat until it really got going, and I was pleased to hear
Bobby play his singature loping repeat at least for a while on
that song, as he hasn't been doing it with Ratdog or the Other
Ones, at least not that I've heard. The simple organ comping that
Chimenti reprised from the Aoxomoxoa version was also welcome,
giving the whole Fillmore scene a retro feel.

The transition had a weird twist in that it seemed to peak
instantaneously, reaching the "doot de de doot doot doot-doot de
doot" part right away, but they soon cast aside that riff and set
to sea once again in search of a newer feel. The jam took shape
and reached a different crescendo that finally led into the
beginning of I Know You Rider.

The singalong was powerful. Even B, a nondeadicated fan who
nonetheless saw many Dead shows, some with me, some not,
stretching back to the Wall of Sound test at Maples Pavilion in
'73, knows the words to Rider and could appreciate it as a
quintessential Dead folk rock tune. The noise from the stage
sounded joyous.

The encore Like a Rolling Stone echoed the version from 2/27 with
more muscle and surety behind it. They put a full-on exploratory
jam at the end of it and then came back for another lung-bursting
reprise of the chorus. When it was over, B turned to  me and said
"They blissified it."

On the way out, looking at the photos of Bill, and Janis, and
Jerry, and so on I said to someone in the cattle run, "This must
be like playing in a shrine to yourself for them" (and thought
"or a tomb").

From the time the curtain opened on 7/24 at Shoreline and I had
the pleasure of being up close as the boys plunged into Dark Star
and handed the reins to Steve Kimock to those last notes of Like
a Rolling Stone, I felt like I'd been in the throes of a Dead-
and Zerohead fantasy: Steve Kimock, my favorite living guitarist,
sitting in on and tearing the roof off with some of my favorite
Dead material. Now I was ready to to see the formal debut of
Steve's newest personal project - KVHW - at GAMH, a smaller place
yet, completing a fanatical trifecta of sorts....

...but not to gloss past the significance of these Phil & Friends
shows. I'd seen all of them since 2/27 (and the one at the
Maritime when Phil played Dark Star with a cellist), and this set
was the undisputed apotheosis so far. Maybe it can get better.
Hell, I hope so. But a nine-month project seemed to come to reach
fruition that weekend. And this show in particular revealed a
potential quarry of primal Dead still untapped and only barely
hinted at in the otherwise worthy TOO shows this summer. At the
Fillmore, we got the powerful medicine. Standing around on the
street (I tried to get out of there faster this time, but still
got no poster) I noticed the dazed, happy, sated, drained look on
everyone's faces, and that smug feeling of having been in the
right place at the right time.

	--xian
	
	
unbroken chain of sorrow and pearls
unbroken chain of sky and sea
unbroken chain of the western wind
unbroken chain of you and me