Franklin's
Tower (homepage)
Eyes
OfThe World/The Music Never Stopped
Paradiso pics and setlists
Amsterdam, 28th November '98: review
[Images and setlists]
[Ordering details for the '97 Amsterdam video, plus remaining '98 shirts and
other merchandising, from Bree <sugarmag@unforgettable.com> ]
The Paradiso
was the ideal venue for this third and most ambitious of the
post-Cannabis
Cup Deadfests, a multimedia feast of Dead music of all
colours
and interpretations, lasting until the inevitable 4.20am.
A substantial
group had already gathered by late afternoon to hear the
soundchecks
from all three main bands, and those of us taking refuge from
November
chill got to hear some extra music and snap away to our hearts content.
Many
familiar faces from the French and German Dead communities, including
Mr Phil
and his neighbour and photographer Dominique, who were nice enough to
include
me in their foray backstage. An unannounced guest was some sort of
busker
strumming Dylan songs and La Bamba while leaping alarmingly round the hall,
a hyperkinetic
jester who had to be gently dissuaded by the venue's
laid-back
management. In the wings, I met Wende White,organiser of the whole
thing,
Deadicace chanteuse Nikki Matheson (now to be found in cyberspace,
see
below,), Billy Goodman, MC/Vagabond Poet Tony Seldin, and members of
Joe
Gallant's ensemble.
I came
back later to find Kuli Loach in mid-set. Of the bands playing
tonight,
the Seattle based group were perhaps most typical of the numerous
Dead
tribute bands who grace the US to the envy of European heads. That
said,
there was nothing unoriginal about the speeded up and funky Bird Song
I came
in on, and Ron Dickson and co. followed some of the Dead's most
challenging
guitar jams with an infectious and danceable Tangled Up in Blue
-- one
of my favourite songs I found myself enjoying tonight as much as I do
Jerry's.
Their webpage lists a huge range of covers and original songs and
I'd
have liked to see this band given more time to stretch out a bit.
Deadicace
followed with their usual excellent show. This band has a gift for
fidelity
to the original songs - check out the 60s-style keyboard part in
China
Cat, or the fast, 74-vintage Loose Lucy - while adding instrumentation
and
tonal colour which is entirely their own. Highlights were Jean Michel's
and
Patrick
T's keyboard, flute and sax interventions, Bill's piano and vocals
work,
and tonight especially Nikki M's poignant Black Peter, with sax coda
into
a brief but very Rhythm-devilish drums-space. Lots going on here
tonight,
and if Touch of Grey seemed a bit predictable, here's Nikki again
with
a very unexpected Lowell George number, Spanish Moon,concluding as
usual
with the ever-soulful Alex's gallicised Stella. Not only those
familiar
with the music, but several of the non-Deadheads in attendance were
entranced
by this set.
Joe Gallant's
mix of classically-trained musicianship and powerhouse musical
dynamics
turned the Dead's music into something else entirely. This septet
version
of Illuminati, christened Flying Eye, opened with a propulsive,
almost
double-speed version of Corrina that had everyone on their feet. This
song
was all set for release on the first Illuminati "Live" album, when the
Dead
organisation protested that Bob Weir hadn't even released his own
version
yet, so "Live Vol 2" was substituted. Corrina has now finally
made
its official debut on the Other Ones CD... so time for Live Vol One,
folks?
During a chat Joe had owned up to some Yes tendencies and I was
delighted
to pick up on the Squireisms in the bass, with Long Distance Runaround
and
The Fish lurking in there somewhere.
With
the more "Vegas-style" excursions of the Blues for Allah CD absent,
this
version of the band was in some ways easier to assimilate -- the dancers
down
the front certainly didn't have any problems. Help on the Way featured
a vocal
duet and a jam with Summertime quotes before the first of a series of
formidable
crescendos took us into Franklins via Eyes... the jams here were a
string
section workout, with a sort of faux ending which then blasted out again
into
the jam... PITB had a quartet-style opening and a sax break from
Deadicace's
Patrick T. The stringdriven, furiously orientalist Copper Regions
is a
JG original. Then Shakedown, also accelerated and dense, wound down into
an eerie
musical setting for a reading by Tony Seldin.
Tony
was tonight's MC, and perhaps the evening's most direct link with
where
it all started. A performance poet who has shared a stage with the
Dead,
he's also a sort of cultural historian of the Haight
and
can be found at www.sixties.com and
elsewhere.
Against a minor-key background from the band, he read something
from,
he said, 68 - 72, and seemingly about the decline of the
SF scene
and the survival of its spirit (line endings arbitrary...)
The
sidewalk opens
A
thousand wolves
Pour
onto Haight street
The
wolves are eating
Butterflies
from the hands
of
dancing children
We
travel on and on
Through
midnight fog
Searching
for existence
traveling
through and from
matrix
to matrix for
our
lost generation
known
only in
our
dreams.
This
haunting sequence led into The Blues for Allah theme and Samson and
Delilah,
a promising taster for the new album. A final jam around another
Gallant
original resolved itself into a Milesian farewell of So What.
As if
all this wasn't enough, there was an acoustic stage upstairs with a
jug
band, Bill Flemming, and Billy Goodman and his group The Virgins, who
may
(or may not) have performed his version of Black Peter among other goodies.
During
one setbreak, Wende's video of the previous year's Amsterdam event at
AMP
Studios was projected onto a huge screen above the stage... at least one
musician
was gobsmacked to see himself up there in space. At the Paradiso
advance
orders were being taken for copies. Other merchandising included
glow-in-
the- dark shirts with an ingenious motif mixing a Dead-style skull with
Amsterdam's
coat of arms. Another vending area upstairs offered vapouriser hits,
cookies
and a lethal milkshake (voice of experience, arghh).
Given
the quality of the whole event, it was a shame that- as ever - more
people
didn't turn up. The Paradiso's upstairs section was closed and there
was
certainly plenty of room to dance down on the floor, though the place
did
fill up somewhat as the evening went on. Possibly in the immediate
aftermath
of a week of Cannabis Cup, people were just too exhausted for one
more
(Saturday) night. But those who did make it were treated to an
amazingly
diverse musical treat, and other linkups/tours may well arise from
the
event. Thanks to Wende and team for arranging it all and - given
that
I'm
told the whole thing was officially recorded - let's hear the board tapes!
[bp]
