Concert Chat

The Tribute to Jerry Garcia ( a benefit for the Rex Foundation) was swell. It was a beautiful, sunny, day that turned into a crisp night, with six hours of rotating bands and artists performing Jerry songs.

It was cool to see the people who made it, like Donna Jean, the Jerryettes, Merle Saunders (barely able to walk), blue grass folks who sounded good but I don't know there names (Eric knew their names... they played with Jerry in pre-Dead days, and were in New Riders of the Purple Sage).

String Cheese Incident were faithful to several Jerry songs. Trey Antipastio was there, noodling and whatnot. Warren Haynes was the best singer... Jimmy Herring was the best guitarist. Bruce Hornsby didn't bug as much as usual.

It's always nice to see Bill and Mickey. Then there was Ratdog. The only person I ever think shouldn't be singing a Jerry song is Bob. Bob just shouldn't be singing Brokedown Palace. That's all I have to say on the subject.

I would have liked to have seen Phil there, and I thought it odd that Robert Hunter didn't pop up somewhere... but it was still good fun.

I've had some mixed feelings about the Rex Foundation ever since I met a young woman -- a child of a member of the extended Dead familiy -- whose tuition to college was being paid by the Rex Foundation. I didn't seem like a good use of my charity dollars, especially since she seemed rather dumb.

But that was a long, long, time ago.

Between last weekend (Earthdance) and this weekend, I have no idea how many hours of live music we've seen. Bunches, anyway, and that's a good good thing.