I’m in Boston for a SoL consulting gathering. Conveniently, Ratdog played across town at the Orpheum Theater last night. Technically, I’m staying in Charlestown at the Constitution Inn, which is in the Navy Shipyard, which is sort of a planned community built in the 1700’s.
I left the hotel and walked to find a restaurant. Stopped at the generically named “Bistro” and sat at the z-shaped bar. After I ordered I got out the bus schedule and the local map to figure out my options. There was an escort across the corner of the bar waiting for her first call, and she asked where I was going. Turns out you can walk to North Station from here, and I took her instructions and headed out after supper. I stopped at the guard station to checkpoint my wayfinding, and then again at the final navy yard guard station.
You end up walking through a wild backstreets neighborhood parallel to the radical new bridge, behind the Bank North Garden, nee Fleet Center, nee Boston Garden. I stopped several times to verify my orientation, and every time they pointed me straight ahead, just that each time it was a different direction. So after about half an hour, without too much zigzagging, I found my way to the Boston Common, and heard the drums.
The tribe was gathering, but it turns out the drums were played by a homeboy on five gallon buckets. Patchouli and related scents were in abundance. One of the first things I saw was a woman beating up a blind guy near a subway exit. His cane was flailing, and he was on his back covering his face, as she twisted his nose and beat the side of his head with her hands and pulled his ears and kicked him in the chest and screamed at him. I was struck dumb by the sight – it’s not every day you see a chick beating the hell out of a blind guy, but eventually a few of the Deadheads broke them up and she stormed off cursing while the guy got up and got his bearings and poked along. It all happened in less than a minute.
The next thing I saw was a couple of 40-something parents walking with their teenage girls, stuck in the sidewalk traffic jam of miracle seekers and paraphernalia vendors. The girls were wide-eyed and smiling, and the parents were tight-jawed and worried, and pulled them quickly through the crowds. Hehehe – curiosity was sparked; they will return.
I walked toward the theater, and remembered the last time I was here, six or eight years ago, for Blues Traveller. We had backstage passes, but no tickets. So Tenz walked us to some pretty darn fine seats up front, and when the rightful owners came he talked them out of getting security by waving his laminated tour pass telling them we could all fit. Which we could, sort of. It was miserable. I can tolerate a lot of ambiguity, and put up with a lot of crap at rock concerts, but this was pushing it. Plus, the show sucked. Bad sound, drunk audience, amateur playing. The only worse times I remember were the show where a guy in the row behind me vomited on my back (that was pretty bad) and the time the teenage jerks were throwing cigarettes into Cheryl’s hair from the balcony above. I think that was probably Cheryl’s last rock show – she had a run of bad luck in her first few concerts, and it wasn’t very encouraging. The Orpheum Blues Traveller show wasn’t that bad, but I wasn’t planning to see them again, or rushing back to the Orpheum.
Anyway, as I walked down the little side street that fronts the theater, the tour buses were parked right there by the entrance. This made me laugh, because it meant the band was hanging out right in front with the audience – I’ve been on those tour buses, and everything you’ve read or heard is true. Much better to park them behind the theater, because what happens backstage is best left backstage, but I guess you can’t park back there at the Orpheum, or maybe they didn’t get there early enough to get a parking space?
Once inside I bought a 20-oz beer ($8) and hung out. I met seven year old Cora Blue, who was at her second show with Mom and Dad. She went to Danbury last week, on a school night, and she like it a lot, but Mom got yelled at by the teacher the next day, saying she shouldn’t take her daughter to concerts on school nights. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, I suppose. Cora likes Playing In The Band, and Ramble On Rose. She said she liked dancing to Playin’ and I explained that it’s fun to dance to because it’s written in 4/10 time, which means if you’re normally counting in fours, like 99% of the songs written, then you get a never-ending cycle effect, since the count is 4-4-2 and when you’re in the 2 you’re halfway through the third 4, so to speak. She nodded and said, “Cool.”
The show opened with Jack Straw, jamming between every verse, and halfway through I knew it was going to be a way better show than the one Lynne and I saw in Northampton last week. Emphasis on way. It turned out to be an awesome performance, fantastic and flawless with an enthusiastic and energized audience. Jack Straw flowed into Cassidy which flowed into Birdsong. That triplet was probably 40 minutes and they hadn’t stopped yet, moving right into Odessa.
[An imaginary version of this blog post would link to each song in the set, extract a personally meaningful lyric to highlight, and relate my comments to support the metaphor. This isn’t that post. Instead, here are someone’s photos, and a setlist, as a nod to formality.]
During Odessa a Beautiful Usher came into our aisle, to check tickets of the aisle in front of us. The Beautiful Usher stopped in front of me, and apologized, but she had to clean up this aisle, pointing in front (where there were a couple of people for every seat). The Beautiful Usher pulled out her flashlight and leaned over the seats to start checking tickets. This had the effect of grinding her (also beautiful) butt into my crotch. I was simply unwilling to stop dancing during this minor inconvenience, and the Beautiful Usher kept doing her job, pressed into me. This combination turned out to be not unpleasurable. Eventually she was done hassling the people in front of me and the Beautiful Usher stood up and turned around. She said, “Sorry!” And I said, “You’re not going to stay and dance??” She laughed, “Ha! I wish!” and the Beautiful Usher moved along. But at that point I knew what the blog post would be titled.
Then the band (you remember there was a band playing, right? I was a bit distracted) went into Lazy River Road, a very thick Deep Elem Blues, finally landing on Greatest Story Ever Told. I thought this would be the last song of the set, but they jumped right into a crankin’ Help On The Way – we were now completely out of control – and then a really, really kick-butt Slipknot to end the set. Wow.
During intermission I scoped out my neighborhood. The guy next to me was too wasted to speak, but he was quiet, so that was neutral. The 50-something Harley babe on the other side apparently only talked to people with long gray hair, so I didn’t qualify. The two guys in front of me were from Strafford VT, just up the road. This was a mail-order ticket faux-syncronicity. If the people filling tickets have time they try to put people near other geographically-related orders. You sure don’t get this kind of service from Ticketmaster.
The second set opened with an acoustic Black-Throated Wind, and moved into Dylan’s Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall. During Hard Rain I was dancing so hard that my fingernail caught the pen in my front pocket and I accidentally flung it somewhere in front of me. Oh well. The band headed into a fast-moving Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, and we still danced. They played a smoking Althea, and we danced some more. They moved into Ashes & Glass, and a lot of people sat down. I didn’t – it’s one of the better recent-vintage Weir tunes, which I like for it’s harmonic structure and the interesting jam before the last verse. In this case they jammed not after every verse, but after every line of every verse, bringing a whole new concept of “jam-band” to the song. After another semi-lame drums and keyboard segment – which seems to exist solely so Bobby can leave the stage and take care of business – they dropped into Sugaree, a long slow romp which could possibly pass for the ballad near the end of the show, save for the fact that you can dance to it in almost any style or speed. They headed for a jazzy jam, which I thought might be the Wheel but turned out the be the end of Birdsong, which I forgot they hadn’t finished, and then the jam out of Birdsong landed on the ending segment of Cassidy which I also forgot they hadn’t finished – blowing me away. I figured dollars to doughnuts that Franklin’s Tower would close the set to complete the normal Help > Slip > Franklin’s triple-play, but they played an over the top One More Saturday Night which brought down the house. A stunning end of the set, from Sugaree onward.
The encore started with Mark playing bass instead of guitar, Robin on guitar instead of bass, a roadie on drums, the drummer on piano, the horn player on keyboards, and Bobby on trombone. The song sounded a little familiar, but I couldn’t place it. [Turned out to be Get On The Bus.] In any case I realized it was April 1st, and that explained it. One by one the switched to their regular instruments while the song played on, and then on a single downbeat they arrived at Franklin’s Tower. They didn’t seem rushed, even though it was 11:40, and played a longish driving version. Even the laggards danced at this, knowing the show was about to end, and when the house lights came on everyone was exhausted and satisfied. (You can order an official recording of the show here.)
Left the building close to midnight. The understated picky Deadhead would say, “Good show.” It was better than good, and I needed it. Got to bed at 1:30 old time, 2:30 new time.
Then, four hours later I was waking up. Two hours after that I was sitting in a circle for check-in, and then we played with Legos in a group aspirations exercise until lunch. My play date continues. Cora Blue would be happy at this.
April 2, 2006