Full Throckle!
Throckmorton Theatre, Mill Valley
January 3, 2010
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It seems only fitting Furthur christened the ornate Throckmorton Theatre with ON THE ROAD AGAIN, a 2010 Spring Tour upon us that literally runs through Radio City, and would make Jack Kerouac proud, teleporting from Hampton to Ithaca to Denver to Portland. “1940 Xmas Eve with a full moon over town” felt equally apropos, John “Psych” Kadelick offering an able rendering of STAGGER LEE, and to quickly dispel the 300-pound-gorilla, I’d like to say right off the bat that This Guy Is For Real. Making the most of their ‘rehearsal time’, Bobby pulled a KING BEE forty-five-years-in-the-making-if-you-can-believe-it, and then John went through a meticulous version of HURRICANE. Finding the next gear, the boys paired WOMEN ARE SMARTER with a THEY LOVE EACH OTHER that was somewhere between 70s Dead and JGB, and then it was Weir’s turn to do Dylan, offering a fresh rhythmic take on MAGGIE’S FARM.

The resplendent theatre, with a painted ceiling of Orpheus playing his lyre, conjured thoughts of Jerry holding a crowd under his mythic spell, and STELLA BLUE came crying up the night. It was a night of milestones for me: for one, I miracled a three-year-old (to give you an idea of how tight tickets are there), and I don’t think I’d ever seen them at a venue truly that teeny-tiny. Bobby didn’t get that memo, apparently, launching into a THROWING STONES fit for a football stadium, working the crowd with the same intensity and focus. In Jeff Chimenti and Kadelick they’ve found the right alchemy, and the core duo have never seemed more ready to eclipse anything we’ve seen so far, in that collective sense. Deadheads will debate between eras and golden reigns ad infinitum, but no one can argue that the music and our community do evolve. While BROKEDOWN PALACE and LOSER had moments that may have ended up on the cutting room floor, they also contained brilliant stretches where the music played the band, the collective consciousness of our scene doing the conducting.

As Phil said in his DONOR RAP,
"We're going to keep doing this until we get it right," and
I for one am On the Bus!

See you furthur on the road!
~Rolling Rider
1/3/2010

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Lazy River Road - Penn's Landing - 7.2.08

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