NYS Music 20​16

Tag: JERRY GARCIA

  • All You Really Need: DSO at the Palace Theatre

    On Saturday night at the Palace Theatre in Albany, Dark Star Orchestra (DSO) brought the good ol’ Grateful Dead back to life in a stellar fashion.  Excitement filled the room before the first note was played as word had spread that Jeff Chimenti would be on keys for the entire show as he did the night before in New Haven, CT.  Normally holding down the boards, Rob Barraco replaced Skip Vangelas on bass creating a music chairs scenario that we were all ready to embrace.  

    DSO Palace TheatreOpening the set with a heartfelt “Sugaree,” the Capital Region crowd began to “shake it” on low gear while blissfully enjoying Jeff Mattson’s passionate vocals.  After the silky first set introduction, rhythm guitarist Rob Eaton wasted no time channeling the cowboy in Bob Weir with a wild west “Me and My Uncle> Big River” one-two punch.  While “Me and My Uncle” is by far the most played song in the Dead’s expansive repertoire, I never get tired of the rockabilly energy release after a soul searching Jerry Garcia tune.  Chimenti gave the fans a symbolic “YEEHAW” on the keys during “Big River” and reminded the room why he was invited by the remaining Dead members to join them on the “Fare Thee Well” run.  

    Slowing things down with an exceptional threesome of “Peggy-O,” “Cassidy” and “Friend of the Devil,” this show was starting to feel like a classic late-70’s gathering.  Barraco displayed his nasty bass playing abilities during “Peggy-O” before Lisa Mackey floated her way on stage during “Cassidy,” playing the role of Donna Godchaux. She would return two songs later for “From the Heart of Me” which would turn out to be one of the last times this tune was ever played on stage.  It was after “Ramble On Rose” that a wide-eyed seasoned tour-veteran giddily informed me of the Grateful Dead show the Orchestra was recreating:  January 11th, 1979 from the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, NY.  

    My original hunch of a late-70’s show turned out to be true, but I did not realize the importance of the date until hearing the tear-the-roof-off “Jack Straw.”  Cowboy Bob was back for this desperado masterpiece as Mattson threw in some rawer than usual jamming.  Deadheads young and old call this one of the best versions of all time for the blistering Jerry solo and, nearly 38 years later, DSO honored their heroes to the fullest extent.  Also noteworthy in the original performance was Bobby’s comical word-swap as he sang, “We used to play for acid, now we play for Clive.” But from what I heard on Saturday, Eaton left those lyrics in 1979.  Out of all the stand-out moments of the first set, the vocal belting of “Jack Straw from Wichita” hit the crowd with a sonic uppercut that we didn’t recover from until after set break.  The always rockin’ “Deal” closed out a set filled with Jerry’s greatest hits and some colossal Bobby moments in between.  

    Picking up right where the first set left off, “I Need a Miracle” carried the tidal wave of momentum that was felt over the intermission.  “Ship of Fools” calmly sailed into the number two slot of the second set before kicking off another Weir-inspired highlight in “Estimated Prophet.”  Chimenti, Barraco and Mattson provided the foundation for the psychedelic reggae and while we were in Upstate NY, the California lyrics were shown a lot of love.  “My time’s comin’ any day” eerily stood out to me as the original 1979 show would be Keith Godchaux‘ last appearance at the famed Grateful Dead stomping grounds of the Nassau Coliseum.  An even more fitting tune for the final night of Keith in Long Island, “He’s Gone” allowed my over-thinking self to read even further into the lyrics, symbolism and song placement of my favorite band.  Fortunately, we were given a temporary vocal time-out and the spinners in the audience were treated to a short and sweet “Drums” by Dino English and Rob Koritz on kits and percussion.  

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    New Yorkers from Long Island to Albany were able to enjoy the home state lyrics delivered in the straightforward version of “Truckin’” before the second major highlight of the set, “Stella Blue.”  Mattson made his guitar strings shine one more time during this bluesy crowd pleaser.  “Stella” may have a somber tone, but Jerry’s fiery guitar solo always brings the boil to high during this signature ballad and the Orchestra perfected the nucleus of the original.  Closing the second set with a reminder of all we really need, “Good Lovin’” pleasantly drifted off into DSO show history.  

    The boys encored with “Casey Jones,” which serves as a rarity in late-70’s era.  The “upper” drug reference in one of the band’s most radio-played tunes gave the crowd the extra pep in their step before pouring out into the street of Albany for a night cap.  Similar to the good ol’ Grateful Dead, Dark Star Orchestra seems to have a particular affinity for the Empire State.  While I have not done the research, I would suggest that New York may have more Deadheads per capita than any other state from sea to shining sea.  Saturday night’s recreation of a legendary 1979 Nassau show performed in front of an Albany crowd furthered my love for New York State, the Grateful Dead and the incredibly talented Orchestra that pays tribute to them tour after tour.   DSO returns to the state with “the ways and means” for two shows on November 25th and 26th at The Paramount in Huntington.  

    01/11/79
    Nassau Coliseum – Uniondale, NY

    Set 1: Sugaree, Me And My Uncle, Big River, Peggy-O, Cassidy, Friend Of The Devil, New Minglewood Blues, From The Heart Of Me, Ramble On Rose, Jack Straw, Deal

    Set 2: I Need A Miracle, Ship Of Fools, Estimated Prophet, He’s Gone, Drums, Truckin’, The Other One, Stella Blue, Good Lovin’

    Encore: Casey Jones

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  • Photo Gallery: Warren Haynes Brings The Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration To CMAC

    On Thursday, August 4, Warren Haynes brought The Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration to Constellation Brands – Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center in Canandaigua, NY. Photographer Jake Silco was on hand to capture the performance.

  • Jerry Garcia’s Solo Catalog is Now Streaming

    Trixie Garcia announced this week that her father’s Jerry Garcia Collection would be available for streaming, as well as an archive of numerous recordings and Jerry’s visual art. This will be an exclusive look at never before seen imagery and music from the legendary Grateful Dead frontman.

    Starting on Friday August 5, a collection of 34 reissued albums will be streaming on Spotify, Apple Music and Google Play and available for download through Google Play and iTunes.

    Among the albums available for streaming are Run for the Roses, Reflections, Ragged but Right and numerous compilations and volumes of his live performances.

  • A Jammin’ Dark Star and an IPA, Please

    They high-stepped into the Saranac Brewery and bid us all a fond goodnight, but in the middle, Dark Star Orchestra took the near capacity crowd on a mind bending, psychedelic journey through the middle 1970s.

    dark starOne of the most fun aspects of attending a DSO is trying to figure out what Grateful Dead setlist they are recreating. Opening the show with a fast “Bertha” made it immediately feel like a 1970s show to me, but because the band has played it for their entire career, it didn’t help much in determining a year. “Me and My Uncle,” “Loser” and “Black Throated Wind” confirmed that it was a show somewhere between 1970 and 1979, which, again, doesn’t do much in helping me decide.

    It was the following, stand alone “Scarlet Begonias,” complete with a harmonious and ferocious solo by Jeff Mattson, that gave away the show either being an original Dark Star Orchestra setlist, or coming from a show prior to March 18, 1977, when the first ever “Scarlet Begonias”>”Fire on the Mountain” was performed at the Winterland Arena.

    A song mainly performed by Jerry Garcia Band, “It Must Have Been the Roses” preceded “Jack Straw,” “Tennessee Jed” and “Mexicali Blues.” “Deal” then featured fun interplay between keyboardist Rob Barraco and Mattson, and really gave the show a 1973/74 feel. Rhythm guitarist Rob Eaton was visibly impressed with how the band was performing, smiling often and seeming more animated than usual.

    “Big River” and “Brown Eyed Women” were short and succinct, before the highlight of the show, “Playin’ in the Band” kicked into another realm. During the lengthy jam, I mentioned how I was confident this was a 1974 show, when an older gentleman informed me that DSO was recreating a Dead show from May 14, 1974 in Montana.

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    “US Blues,” “El Paso” and “Row Jimmy” were executed impeccably to open the second frame. “Weather Report Suite” then bled seamlessly into “Let it Grow,” before the opening lines to the 1960s psychedelic masterpiece “Dark Star” were played. Being the band’s namesake, DSO brought us on a journey from 1967 up until 1974, with elements of the grungy, late 1960s Dead feel, up to the mid-1970s, more mild tempo style and everything in between. It was the highlight of the entire show.

    Garcia ballad “China Doll” gave the crowd a breather before “Promised Land,” “Not Fade Away” and “Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad” literally rocked the set to a close. If there was a single person not dancing like a maniac, I surely did not witness that, and the set concluded with the utmost energy.

    Already prepared for the “One More Saturday Night” encore, I snagged one last $5 Saranac Legacy IPA (seriously, though, where else can you get a beer that delicious at a concert these days for $5? Most Bud Lights at other places cost more than $10 …) and took my space back for one final boogie.

    DSO, almost 20 years into a pretty successful career, is showing no signs of slowing down whatsoever. In a recent interview with NYSMusic, Barraco said the band plans to cut back on the number of shows per year to focus on new family members, and put the emphasis on bigger events. A stop at the Saranac Brewery seems to be an annual thing for the band, and I can’t think of a better place to spend a summer night grooving to my favorite music ever made.

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  • DSO and Rob Barraco are Ready for Summer Tour

    Next year will mark 20 years since a group of guys got together, under a shared love of the Grateful Dead, and started what would grow to be the country’s most well-known Dead tribute act. Rob Barraco looks upon his time in our interview with the legendary keyboardist.

    rob barraco
    Dark Star Orchestra

    From humble beginnings in 1997 to packing a baseball stadium in 2015, Dark Star Orchestra has more than put in the work to earn such praise. Not only does the band recreate specific setlists from the Dead’s more than 2,300-show cannon, but the members are all very well versed in the era each show took place. Now, they do not play note-for-note renditions, but they do alter their improvisational style to portray a mood similar to the original.

    “We get a show book (of GD shows) before each tour,” Rob Barraco, DSO keyboardist of 11 years, said in a phone interview. “Sometimes it’s the ’70s, sometimes it’s the ’80s or ’90s, and then I think ‘oh no’ then we start the show and it just does not matter. We are all locked in and that’s when the best improv happens. We play the songs, but it’s anyone’s guess what happens when we go off.”

    And that is the spirit of what Jerry Garcia left behind. Any given night, once the words were over and he started his unique flurries of notes, anything could — and did — happen. DSO brings that same mindset across the country upward of 120 times each year, and this Sunday at the Saranac Brewery in Utica, you can see the magic that occurs. On Friday and Saturday, the band is playing Stateside Ampitheater at Jay Peak Resort in Jay. Vt., to lead up to the Saranac show.

    A few days later, on July 26, DSO returns to Frontier Field in Rochester, site of the largest non-festival crowd the band has ever performed in front of. Last summer at the minor league baseball stadium, the band hit a grand slam, packing about 10,000 fans and delivering what can only be described as a no-hitter complete with an offensive explosion.

    “It’s the biggest turnout we’ve ever had as the headliner,” Rob Barraco said. “We loved it, and the energy was palpable. We went and fed off of that, and the crowd gave us back so much love. It was so great that we’re going back.”

    For DSO, the show marked a step up in terms of audience size. Typically a festival and mid-sized theater band, DSO has been inching toward playing larger venues over the last three years. Maybe coincidentally, that’s when bassist Skip Vangelas took over for Kevin Rosen, who retired in 2013. Rob Eaton, an original member, plays rhythm guitar; Jeff Mattson plays lead; Dino English and Rob Koritz handle the rhythm section and Lisa Mackey is a backup singer/dancer extraordinaire.

    Barraco doesn’t hide his roots. He first saw the Dead in 1972, and continued to attend shows as often as possible up until around 1980, not long after graduation from a college in New Paltz. He recalls the Wall of Sound and the band’s universally renowned 1977 Spring Tour, where he said he was lucky enough to catch a large portion of the Northeast shows.

    It was, however, when he got the chance to play with Phil Lesh in 2000 when his music performing dreams came true. He was a member of the timeless Quintet (featuring Warren Haynes and Jimmy Herring) and also toured with The Dead in 2002-03. He regularly played with Lesh until around 2012, and is very vocal about the lessons he learned from the legendary bassist.

    “From the very first note I played with Phil, it was just complete improv,” he said. “Phil didn’t ask us to play like the Grateful Dead. He wanted us to be who we are, and it was magical every single night. We took the music and we did some crazy shit, man. With The Dead, they decided they wanted to be a bit more traditional, and that took a little adjusting. And Phil used to tell me, ‘it’s like playing in one band is a Ferrari and the other is a freight train.’ My heart will always be with Phil.”

    In the summer of 2006, Phil and Friends did a co-headlining tour with GRAB (Mike Gordon, Joe Russo, Trey Anastasio and Marco Benevento), and they made a stop at Bethel Woods Performing Arts Center. Anastasio sat in with Phil almost every night, but the Bethel show was special for many reasons, not the least of which was because it took place on the same grounds that hosted the original Woodstock.

    “We were playing (with Trey) and then we all started to realize something, that we were playing the same setlist the Dead played at Woodstock,” Barraco said with a laugh. “That’s Phil — he gave us the setlist, but just didn’t mention that we were doing that.”

    Of all the lessons he took from Lesh, the main one was this: “In DSO, I can never get above myself. None of us do, and that really makes it so great.”

    Rob Barraco attended Fare Thee Well last summer, and gave a fun anecdote of an encounter he had.

    “Trey did a phenomenal job (at GD50.) On the last night, I ran into him backstage and he looked at me and said, ‘Do you realize that if it wasn’t for these guys we wouldn’t have a job?’ Phish never would have done what they’ve done. The Grateful Dead are the architects of the jam band scene. The Allman Brothers Band wouldn’t have started the jam band thing we have. And when Trey said that to me, I said, ‘no shit, dude,’ and that’s the truth.”

    The band recently discussed the state of DSO, and they all agreed they would like to keep this thing going forever. Barraco said the only change, due to band members having children and wanting more family time, is that they’d like to cut the number of shows down to around 100 per year.

    “We are all looking forward to this tour,” he concluded. “We are giddy for the baseball stadiums and I think we are really going to knock some doors down.”

  • Hearing Aide: David Gans ‘It’s a Hand-Me-Down’

    David Gans It's a Hand-Me-DownDavid Gans is a man with many talents. After launching a music career in 1970, Gans became a noted and award-winning journalist born, writing for Rolling Stone, Relix and BAM, while also serving as editor at a few different publications.

    In the 1980s, he became a biographer of sorts for the Grateful Dead, writing Playing in the Band: An Oral and Visual Portrait of the Grateful Dead, with Peter Simon in 1985. Soon after, he created a nationally syndicated radio show called The Grateful Dead Hour and hosts a similar show today on SiriusXM.

    Soon after Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995, Gans got the itch to start playing music again. He played a string of shows in 1997 and 1998 with Phil Lesh in a band called the Broken Angels. Throughout the last 17 years, he has played in several bands who all paid tribute to his favorite band.

    Last year, David Gans released an album of Dead covers, titled It’s a Hand Me Down. The record is bare-bones minimalistic, with Gans giving his takes on such songs as “Loser,” “Deal,” “Terrapin Station,” “Stella Blue” and “Brokedown Palace,” among eight more.

    What sticks out most is how Gans strips down some of the Dead’s most cherished songs and serves them up the way he sees them. For a guy with a Ph.D in the Grateful Dead, he’s as qualified as anyone to give an inside perspective at what the Dead’s music means to him.

    The soft and serene tracks are perfect background music for a dinner party or solo reading time. Gans’ voice is unique, but similar enough to Garcia’s that you feel that comfortable peace that came with every word the man sang.

    Key Tracks: Stagger Lee, Wharf Rat, Looks Like Rain

    Here’s Gans performing “Brokedown Palace” in 2011 on Jam Cruise.