Grateful Dead Reviews

Zooomabooma · Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2007 10:42 am Post subject: Bob Weir Band 3-8-78 (late show)

Bob Weir Band 3/8/78
The Palladium
New York City

Late Show

Poison Ivy, C.C. Rider, Easy To Slip,
Salt Lake City, Bombs Away, I Found Love, It's All Over Now,
This Time Forever -» Shade Of Grey, Lazy Lightning -» Supplication,
Heaven Help The Fool, Around And Around

Encore: I'll Be Doggone -» Wrong Way Feelin'

Pretty fun show! Rock Star wannabe Bobby Weir gets his chance to shine as the leader of the band. And without that pesky limelight stealer Jerry Garcia, shine he does!

A couple months before, Heaven Help The Fool went on sale, Weir's first solo album (without any members of the Dead.) Now here he is in-between Dead tours, doing shows to support the recent release. His bandmates all are guys who weren't even on the album. There is chemistry, though, that's clearly evident! Surely they had some rehearsals probably back in Marin and now about ten nights into the tour, they're smokin'! Bobby Cochran is fantastic on guitar, really makes Jerry sound like just a wee little guitar student who'll never have any success. (Ha, I kid ya Jer, I know you read my reviews!) Anyway, Cochran's not really being Jerry here, he's being himself, the lead guitar player for this band for these songs, almost all of which come from the two month old album. If anyone didn't go out and buy that album before the show, while they may like the tunes they're hearing being played, they've no idea what most of 'em even are! A whole bunch of songs that the crowd was screaming out, like Greatest Story Ever Told, Mexicali Blues and Minglewood Blues, never did get played but numbers like C.C. Rider, while a known tune, hadn't yet made its way into the Dead's repetoire and It's All Over Now and Around and Around have each been Dead played before and on this night they sounded just as cool. Lazy Lightning was awesome and definitely the highlight! Most tunes were played as dead ahead (pun semi-intended) rock and roll. There wasn't much jamming, only on a few songs and never all spacey, long and drawn out.

One of the most interesting aspects of this tour (to me, at least) is some dude named Brent Mydland on keys and organ. I didn't even know he had a spotlight as part of the extended GD family a whole year and a month before his first show as a full-fledged card-holding member of the Dead. No singing but he played nicely and/or helped kick butt on a whole bunch of songs; really a neat glimpse of the future. Interesting, too, to hear a bunch of tunes that are in the Ratdog catalog today but here they're played in their infancy way back when. Overall a darn fun show that I would super suggest to any Deadhead Bob Weir fan!!!

the show is available from sugarmegs.org
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