ZONE OUT with the ROLLING RIDER
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Robert Hunter
Los Angeles - 6/20/03
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The chains of my dreams were broken this weekend, as Robert Hunter graced the Congo Room in West LA for an intimate two night stand.

The first mellifluous chords of BOX OF RAIN sprinkled like rose petals, as the storyteller embarked on a pilgrimage through our collective mythology. The crowd under his spell, he interpolated WIND BLOWS HIGH, imploring us to “Hold that rhythm and never let it die”. After a seamless rap about his sole National Guard experience sent to patrol the Watts Riots, he knotted the ribbon of BOX OF RAIN.

When Hunter was being born, his mother heard a man humming the tune Marie Helena. A few days shy of his 62nd birthday, his kinship with the tune CRUEL WHITE WATER still emanated as he gave a nod to the current tour: “Ran across the hidden chord couldn’t learn the changes, the Blue Pacific called I had to go”. A tender reading of BROWN EYED WOMEN followed, and with it, Hunter’s admission: “God I love that song. I can’t believe I had anything to do with the writing of it”.

EASY WIND>MR. CHARLIE gave him a chance to show off his chops on his new white Gretsch Falcon, and OVER THE HILLS featured beautiful musings: “That’s not the sound of your regular number, I know that tune like I know my own name”. The ice blue roses of SO MANY ROADS bloomed before our eyes, intricate and crystalline, and the set closed with the haunting woman described in KEYS TO THE RAIN: “Her tears were like needles that hung on a chain, she didn’t ask nothing except more of the same”.

Time after time, Hunter explained, we leave the loves of our lives behind. He weaved this theme throughout, along with the idea of reaching the edges of your dreams. The Jack O’ Roses opened up set two with a majestic STANDING ON THE MOON, then let us really boogie with BERTHA. Slipping down gravity’s rainbow, another newer song INTO THE BLUE rang true: “Waist deep in summer, ready to fly”.

He wrapped the highway of END OF THE ROAD around us like a python in the night, then navigated us deep into the land of Fennario with the pairing of DIRE WOLF>PEGGY O. The mythos of Terrapin Station is fleshed out in the characters from these songs, whose adventures can be followed also in Lady of Carlisle and Ivory Wheels/Rosewood Track, on the emerald seas with soldiers and sailors, and the lady who: “On the back of a mighty Terrapin with a coral fan, throws that fan to the diamond beach”.

SERAFINA MAGDALENA, one of Hunter’s newest compositions, offered his trademark imagery, timeless and entrancing: “Trail of ancient footprints to your doorstep, pathway strewn with broken colored glass”. The infamous heckler made his first appearance at this point, shouting drunken epithets such as: “C’mon. Play some more Jerry Garcia songs!” Hunter let it roll off his back, delighting the crowd with his line: “I’m up for the challenge. What could be more Jerry than…THIS!” as a lead-in to STELLA BLUE.

Drifting to the edges of our dreams, wearing the indelible marks of love and loss, Hunter guided us through DEAL and into a poignant, magical linking of REUBEN AND CHERISE>MUST’VE BEEN THE ROSES. The hundred-plus fans on hand must’ve felt blessed as Hunter invoked a sacred pact: “If I tell another what your own lips told to me, let me lay neath’ the roses, let my eyes no longer see”.

A few hours earlier, the Dead show culminated their show with Ripple. Apparently, it reached from the east out to the west, as Hunter returned the favor with a RIPPLE encore. What a glorious feeling, that on this night, there were songs to fill the air on both coasts. Our forty-year journey has no end in sight, and our cosmic oneness is weaved tighter than ever.

If You Could See in My Heart,
Rolling Rider

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