Rowhouse Logic - Breathtaking Inanity

Last Saturday night, I went to my second Ratdog show ever. At age 38, I guess you could call me a bit of a late-blooming deadhead. I only saw one Dead show while Jerry was still alive. Appropriately enough, it was the final show at JFK in June of 1989. What a way to close the place.

My true initiation into the subculture came at the hands of my ex-boyfriend. I’d always loved what I knew of the music, but having not seen the live show often, I knew I was missing the essence of the band. When we started dating, he’d been seeing the Grateful Dead for years. Steve was a wonderful teacher. He copied studio and live CDs for me, he played me live stuff when we went places, and he took me to shows. My first show was a Ratdog show on Penns Landing. The day had been rainy, but as Ratdog took the stage, the clouds broke apart and the sunset over the river provided a gorgeous backdrop for the concert.

Over the 4 and ½ years I spent with Steve, I saw a bunch more shows, mostly the Other Ones, but the last two years, they started touring again as The Dead. Until Saturday night, the best show I’d seen was in June 28, 2003, the second show at the Tweeter Center. Willie Nelson opened and Joan Osbourne joined the Dead with her soulful vocals. The crowd practically lost their collective minds when the band broke out old chestnuts like “Mama Tried” and “The Race is One”. The show closed with a relatively rare version of St. Stephen, including the Celtic sounding High Green Chilly Winds (aka William Tell Bridge).

But as great as that show was, something about Saturday night’s Ratdog show elevated it to the top of the list. Maybe it was the small venue. The place was packed to the gills, but the crowd was largely peaceful. We arrived pretty early, got drenched when the skies opened up, but were lucky to find seats on a two level bleacher on the first floor. Best seats in the house, for watching the show and all the other happenings. Watched lots of people getting kicked out for various infractions. Most likely pot smoking, but I couldn’t guarantee it. Everybody was getting their grooves on, including me and the previously non-dancing ex-boyfriend, but my favorite activity is watching the people who are spinning, gyrating, emoting with what seems to be complete disregard of the music. I guess the music in their heads is a little different than what I’m hearing.

Click here for the setlist.

I’m not going to try and do a real review. That’s probably better left to the experts. But for me, the highlights of the show included the ending songs of both sets. The first set ended with “Silvio” (a Dylan song) interspersed with “Tequila”. Yes, the Pee Wee Herman song. It’s hard to believe that I would have been the only person dancing like Pee Wee, but I didn’t see anyone else making a spectacle of themselves. Well, actually, lots of people were making spectacles of themselves, but not by dancing like Pee Wee. And “Not Fade Away” was a great end to the second set. The entire crowd was singing, “I’m gonna tell you how it’s gonna be…”. I know Ratdog/The Dead play it a lot, but it’s a great song for whipping the crowd into a complete frenzy. The encores were “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” and the traditional, at this point, “One More Saturday Night”. The last thing I heard after the show ended was the bathroom attendant and one of the maintenance guys screaming for an encore. The ultimate sign of a great show may very well be the reaction of those who work at the venue and can’t leave as soon as the show’s over screaming for more. It was a cool moment indeed.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 2nd, 2005 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Freshly-baked Cookies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.