The Grateful Dead Moves Furthur http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/2011/oct/06/grateful-dead-moves-furthur/
with Bob Weir and Phil Lesh four decades after Monterey Pop. By Adam Joseph Thursday, October 6, 2011 In June of 1967, an unkempt and hairy ragamuffin San Francisco rock outfit brought its extended acid test jams to the Monterey Pop Festival. The Grateful Dead had already started gaining underground notoriety for their epic improvisational instrumentals, but the Monterey County Fairgrounds was a coming-out party of sorts – not just for them, but for a whole approach to music appreciation and celebration. Rock Scully, a Monterey Peninsula local and the Dead’s manager from 1965-85, regards the unprecedented three-day, outdoor music festival as the “first of its kind to feature electric rock and roll” and “a prototype for all the rock festivals that followed.” It was a platform used to introduce the world to little-known talents at the time, like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. The event also highlighted world music acts like sitar guru Ravi Shankar and introduced hippies to the heart-throbbing voice of Georgia native Otis Redding. Additionally, Scully says the festival showcased many of San Francisco’s “free-flowing” bands of the time, including Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company and Moby Grape. At the apex of that amorphous, psychedelic music scene was the band that he managed for 20 years, fueled by Jerry Garcia’s inquisitive musical experimentation, which always appeared to expand exponentially. But Scully, Grateful Dead rhythm guitarist-singer Bob Weir and the rest of the band were not very happy with their performance at the fairgrounds. “It was terrible,” Scully says. “We were sandwiched between The Who and Jimi Hendrix on Sunday night. Also, the wall in the back of the arena was breached so everyone started flooding in.” A bigger hindrance arrived when Mickey Dolenz, drummer for one of the original boy bands, The Monkees, interrupted the Grateful Dead’s set to announce, “The Beatles are NOT here!” All weekend, rumors swirled the Fab Four were at the fairgrounds; the band, in fact, was recording in London. Those plot twists inspire Scully to admit he’s glad he refused to sign a release, before the Dead played, that would’ve allowed them to be filmed for D.A. Pennebaker’s pivotal documentary, Monterey Pop . Weir concedes his most memorable moments of the 1967 festival didn’t necessarily come on stage, but while he watched Hendrix play from the side of the stage and when he listened to Joplin blow the minds of all the spaced-out kids in the audience. (Scully adds that he had a blast checking out all the musicians interact, meet, hang out and hold late-night, impromptu jam sessions on the Monterey Peninsula College football field.) Weir continues: “I remember being nervous [playing the Pop Festival] and we didn’t get to use our own backline gear, which sort of impacted us a little bit, but [our performance] was also flat. It wasn’t a bad night, it just wasn’t an exceptional night by any means.” Fortunately he will return to play the arena stage at the fairgrounds once again, for the first time in 45 years, this Friday and Saturday with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh and Furthur, the latest incarnation of the seminal band. “It will be interesting to play [the fairgrounds] again,” Weir says. “I remember it being a good-sounding place so I’m looking forward to it.” ~≈~≈~ Between then and now, troves of fans have discovered the group. “By 1967, [the Dead] were already the center of a lot of attention in San Francisco,” Scully says. “It would only be a matter of time that after the festival kids would start flooding The Haight. And they did.” In fact, the Grateful Dead became so ingrained as a way of life – for both the musicians involved and their loyal fans – that even when the group’s unofficial leader Jerry Garcia passed away in 1995, the Dead didn’t stay dormant very long. In 1998, Weir and Lesh started touring as The Other Ones, an offshoot featuring Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, keyboardist Bruce Hornsby, sax-man Dave Ellis and guitarists Mark Karan and Steve Kimock. After a few years, The Other Ones became The Dead (without Grateful) for a short amount of time before disbanding to take on separate side projects. But by 2009, both Weir and Lesh were itching to delve back into that expansive Grateful Dead song vault – after all, Weir believes, if Jerry were still alive, he would still be touring. “We’ve got nothing better to do,” Weir says. For diehard Deadheads, that represents a divine decision, and one that will evoke memories shared by thousands, of quitting jobs and selling homes to tour with the Dead. The devotion even led some to hold their weddings in parking lots before shows. That undying love, Weir insists, remains the group’s driving engine. “[The audience] feeds us,” he says. “They let us know what they like and we work with that. When you’re out in the audience you can feel it and we sure as hell feel it too. We’re always a part of the experience as much as the audience.” Adds Scully, “[Furthur] shows are really exciting because the audience is so appreciative. This isn’t like watching a Grateful Dead cover band; it’s an extension of the band. It says it in the name, Furthur: It’s really a deep investigation into the music and what makes it so special.” Furthur, which was the name of the candy-colored school bus that transported Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters around the country dosed on LSD, which was idealized in Tom Wolfe’s journalistic account of counterculture in the 60s, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test , is also a way for the cultural phenomenon that is the Grateful Dead to live on. “This is the only life I’ve ever known,” Weir says. Lesh and Weir’s musical connection with Furthur’s younger bandmembers – Jeff Chimenti (keyboard), John Kadlecik (lead guitar), Joe Russo (drums), Sunshine Becker (backing vocals) and Jeff Pehrson (backing vocals) – finds a familiar improvisational chemistry. “We listen to each other and play off each other,” Weir says. “It’s pretty much like it’s always been. On a nightly basis I get surprised by certain songs standing out. The tunes never quit surprising me. Beyond that, it’s business as usual.” Adds Scully, “[Weir and Lesh] have become really good team leaders and the band is a team effort.” Lead guitarist/singer Kadlecik spent several years touring with the popular Grateful Dead tribute band Dark Star Orchestra and is known for his ability to come scarily close to replicating Jerry Garcia’s voice. Furthur, meanwhile, replicates the Dead’s penchant for extended songs – and shows – playing for as long as four hours while offering everything from Garcia solo work like “Reuben and Cerise,” to marathon Grateful Dead classics like “Weather Report Suite,” “Let it Grow” and “Eyes of the World,” which have all been known to meander on for more than 15 minutes if the band’s feeling it. “The jams are still spontaneous and can be combustible or completely knock you off your feet, which is part of the reason why they’re so popular,” Scully says. “They want to pack more of their experience and knowledge about what works and what doesn’t work, and try to make it better and work more often.” When Furthur lights up the Monterey County Fairgrounds on Friday and Saturday nights, Weir says it may be fun to revisit the set they played on that very stage at the Monterey Pop Festival. Not that he’s living in the past – far from it: “It’s sometimes hard for me to be involved with the past,” he says, “because there’s so much future-oriented work in my scope.” FURTHUR plays 7pm Friday and Saturday, Oct. 7-8, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds, 2004 Fairgrounds Road, Monterey. $55.25. 394-8432. www.furthur.net <blockquote> FURTHUR plays 7pm Friday and Saturday, Oct. 7-8, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds, 2004 Fairgrounds Road, Monterey. $55.25. 394-8432. www.furthur.net </blockquote> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to sixties-l@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sixties-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
