ZONE OUT with the ROLLING RIDER

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12-30-01
Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium
Oakland, CA
____________________

While spending the day traversing colorful San Francisco in a checkerboard route (on purpose) that took about three beautiful hazy lazy mazy hours, the first song from the tape player was 'Shakedown Street' (also on purpose). Call it wishful thinking, but today this '82 version and the Bay Bridge felt 'right'. So when Phil Lesh and Friends opened the show with a walloping Shaker, it was smiles all around!

Fun doesn't describe the pairing of the thumping 'Shakedown Street' with 'Loose Lucy', in the town of hard knocks, tough blocks, and music that really and truly rocks known as Oakland, California. My mind wandered to some of the good old days, where this town proved to us that the music performed here has a claim to some of the most nostalgic jewels in the Grateful Dead's treasured history. And this 12/30/01 show proved no different.

Like old masters handling ancient stones, Phil Lesh and Friends laid down a seamless 'King Solomon's Marbles> Stronger than Dirt', and the denizens of Deadland didn't miss a beat. Followed by the haunting, and embracing 'Mason's Children': "...All his children grew and grew, they never grew so tall again". 'Jam> St.Stephen' sealed the covenant of work in the form of '60s and '70s gems the band was conjuring up this evening. To end the first set, Phil dug even deeper with a rousing version of 'Golden Road'. It was evident from the start the Phans this particular eve knew full well the path of Unlimited Devotion, and they were being treated with a capital T -- the bachelor party before the Grateful Dead reunion 2001-2. "Hey hey, hey, come right away / Join the party every day" still makes me crack a smile after all these years, and when Warren and Phil resonated with the line "We ain't even begun", I actually pinched myself!

[Now please bare with the Rider for one moment, and let me take you back 10 years ago, to the 1992 Winter shows in this very town, Oakland CA. The first year there would be no New Years shows, the Boys instead played a HUGE 5 night run at the "Wizard's Pulpit" (Oakland Coliseum) that included Phil's gooey, marshmallow-like 2nd Set opener 'Shakedown Street' (12/16/92) and then encored that night with 'Casey Jones'. Shaker to the Casey encore this time around proves anything is possible with love, and the hope of this New Year certainly includes our secret formula, Deadheads plus Our Music equals Magic. 35 or something years later, the community and the music are as strong and as wonderful as ever.]

An introspective, mesmerizing 'Cryptical Envelopment' opened up Set 2, the crowd en masse coming to terms with the reality of time - "…you know he had to die". The heart-wrenching melody was at once powerful as a diesel train, and as soft as a billow of smoke. A searching jam melted into a poignant and ethereal 'Strawberry Fields Forever', and I noticed a little Asian child - his warm, bright eyes transfixed on the stage. Each moment like this seemed to reinforce the message of love from this music and community that has never been more apparent. Barracco passionately observed, "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see. It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out…", one of those lyrics that is as deep as seven oceans, but yet as simple as the water that lets us live.
'Other One' was blistering; Phil's bass chugging along like the beat of our collective heart. Finally the band seemed to find the 'Eleven', after tiptoeing around its periphery for a large portion of the first set's jamming. Blasting off from there, the interstellar course charted by Phil left us floating nebulously. Warren and Jimmy have reached the point where they work together like Scottie and Michael, Penn and Teller, or any of the other dynamic duos. A musical conversation followed which although seemingly effortless, had all the intricacies of the catacombs, with countless chambers, and infinite hidden portals.

If David Gans was right, and the Grateful Dead does mirror baseball, then the band had set us up for the 'clean-up' spot in the lineup. Certainly, 'Scarlet Begonias' was a grand slam, reminiscent of those golden moments of the past, when the band and audience alike would be transported to that nearly indescribable place. Not only is the sky yellow and the sun blue, our female counterparts are 'not like other girls'. Add Love Poet as yet another title on Hunter's illustrious resume. So magical, this song is surely one of the masterpieces in the musical renaissance we call Phil Lesh and Friends. I had *one of those flashes* I'd been there before, musically, geographically, and spiritually.

Perhaps no tune encompasses the overflowing of love present here like 'Unbroken Chain', at one time a forgotten melody, and now the flagship song for the band. "Listening for the secret, searching for the sound, but I could only hear the preacher, and the baying of his hounds." 'Unbroken Chain' linked up with my personal favorite of all the 'new' songs, the indomitable suite, 'Night of a Thousand Stars'. Complete with deft musical work from Molo, Barracco, Haynes, Herring, and Phil, the song features some intense lyrics from the brain of Hunter to the tongue of Warren, including: "…on this night of a thousand stars, we always remember who we are…". So true.

What possible nightcap does justice to a hot-date like that? Can there be a finale to a display of fireworks so electrically vivid that they pirouetted across the sky? I have to take you back again to Oakland Coliseum, December of '92, to the other pairing of 'Shakedown Street' to the 'Casey Jones' encore. After debuting 'Casey Jones' at RFK and then Deer Creek for the first times in a decade, the Boys treated the West Coast faithful to a good ol' 'Casey Jones' on 12/16/92. And now 12-30-01's encore was no different. This old engine makes it on time! 1982, 1992, 2002…with the Grateful Dead years fly at the very strum of the strings.

yours truly,
Rolling Rider

Stay tuned for the Rolling Rider's 12/31/01 account…

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read the 10.31.01 Janes Addicted Rider

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