David Gans wrote a wonderful essay in 1983 about how following the Grateful Dead is like being a baseball fan. “No two (shows) are ever alike. The plays are always different, and there's always fresh hope,” he says, among other nice comparisons. Back in the proverbial day, I embraced that metaphor through my fandom of the Chicago Cubs. That ball team and that band were both lovably imperfect and mercurial, deeply rooted and all American.
It was in Chicago you see, at Northwestern University in the latter 1980s, where I first heard Grateful Dead records, so it’s possible I came home to my campus room from a Cubs game at Wrigley Field and put on Reckoning, so I could unwind (and possibly study) as my LP player spun out the dulcet tones of “China Doll” or the Carolina blues of “Babe It Ain’t No Lie.” That album was for me a Rosetta Stone for American roots music, a window into country, blues and bluegrass that helped me understand where I came from and that set the path for my musical and eventually professional life. The Cubs (a vexing passion I inherited from my Chicago native father) showed me the pastoral beauty of America’s greatest game and the virtue of rooting for underdogs.
If you’d told me back in 1988 that one day I’d see the Dead perform at Wrigley Field I’d have thought you were being silly. Literary analogies aside, the Dead and the Cubs weren’t ideas that could occupy the same space. But here I was, 35 years later, me and two of my best friends from those heady and music-filled collegiate years, walking up N. Clark Street through the Lake View neighborhood on a mild Friday afternoon in June to see the impossible, the final iteration of the band on its purported final tour, in my favorite ball park. Because many months ago, I noticed the dates in the band’s email newsletter, including a confluence - Dead & Co. at Wrigley almost on my birthday in my favorite American city - too obvious to miss. It was a rare case where I didn’t procrastinate on concert tickets. I called my friend Ed. He and his wife were instantly on board. I had my choice of seats for Friday, June 9.
Early June in Chicago could have been 95 degrees or 55 degrees, but it was 70. It could have been blustering or rainy, but there was a cloudless sky, a perfect evening for baseball, you might say. The city was pulsing with life and energy. You couldn’t have counted all the sailboats cruising Lake Michigan that afternoon. The Chicago Blues Festival had fired up downtown. And Wrigleyville was nicely full but not oppressively so with Dead fans of all ages, and I was delighted to see that a cheerful ease still pervades the fanbase.
When we turned the corner and saw the big red Wrigley sign and the park itself I told my friends we’d have to stand there for a few minutes just taking it in. I hadn’t been there in a good ten years, and will always have the aura of a shrine. I was taken back to the day in 1984 when I first saw the green sweep of the outfield, the ivy covered walls, the manual scoreboard in the outfield, and the erector set structure that looks a lot like it did in the 1920s. I could hear us singing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” with half drunk announcer Harry Caray at the seventh inning stretch. I’d selected seats halfway up the raked grandstand on the first base line, near where I used to watch Ryne Sandberg field ground balls and whip them over to Leon Durham. We took it all in, chatted with seat neighbors, drank excruciatingly expensive beer and hung out for a 6:30 pm start.
To catch everybody up, the Grateful Dead ended its remarkable run as pioneers of improvised rock and roots music in 1995 with the passing of Jerry Garcia. The four key surviving members - Bob Weir (guitar, vox), Phil Lesh (bass), Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann (drummers) - banded together under different names over the years after, even as Weir and Lesh both steered bands of their own. That came to an end, also in Chicago, with three nights at Soldier Field under the moniker Fare Thee Well in July 2015. I didn’t attend, but I was one of the record-setting 400,000 livestream fans watching from home. Then the Dead rose again with the formation of Dead & Company later that same year through a collaboration with pop star and guitar slinger John Mayer. Three OG members, Weir, Hart and Kreutzmann signed on, joined by bass player Otiel Burbridge and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti. In April, Kreutzmann retired from the tour and was replaced by well-known jam band drummer Jay Lane. That’s the band I saw last weekend - not the Grateful Dead but the best possible Dead tribute band with two original members. They’ve been criticized for being somewhat draggy (“Dead and Slow” has been thrown around), but I felt little of that concern during a vibrant, intricately thoughtful performance.
D&C turned the engine over a few minutes after 6:30 with “Playing In The Band,” a serviceable settle-in song. Quickly came more substantial tunes in the country vein I love so much - the shuffling “Deal” followed by “Tennessee Jed,” a song that’s taken on new meaning for me as a 25-year resident of Nashville. Next came a breakthrough I didn’t see coming. I have a lot of respect for John Mayer as a musician and guitar player, and while he’s not as dangerous and interesting as Jimmy Herring from a past version of The Dead, he made a strong Jerry stand-in all night. But he really lit up the park with a slow-boiling “It Hurts Me Too.” Turns out the widely-covered classic was first recorded in Chicago in 1940, and perhaps that’s what inspired the choice. In the moment, I was carried on a wave of love for the Chicago blues tradition as Mayer’s passionate solos evoked Buddy Guy and Otis Rush. The light, the air, the sound, and the setting fused together in a powerful, emotional singularity, with no chemical psychedelic assistance.
Maybe every concert at Wrigley in June works out this way or maybe they planned it meticulously, but the sunset couldn’t have synched with the first set any better. The musicians were bathed in golden hour light the entire time. In a comforting touch, Wrigley fenced off the sacred infield, so from my spot in the grandstands, I watched streaks of sunshine move gracefully across the rich green grass like a big diamond sundial. The band reached me with “Ramble On Rose” and “Brown Eyed Women,” a song I specifically requested to the heavens pre-show. As the set ended with “Dancing In The Street,” the sun finally set over the Illinois prairie, the sky went deep purple, and the band retreated for the set break.
If the first half light show was produced by the setting sun, the rest was a well-designed display of fluxing artificial luminosity that involved not just the stage but the whole park. With that as the nocturne backdrop, Dead and Co. played a strong second set that included the long and elaborate “Terrapin Station” and personal, perennial favorites “Sugaree” and “Sugar Magnolia.” But the highlight for me was “Drums,” because I realized early in the evening that this was probably the last time I’d ever get to see Mickey Hart, one of the greatest percussion conjurers of all time, take a solo in person. He bonked his electrified string beam thing and generated pulsing, low frequency energy that made EDM sound like children’s music. Hart’s swirling, throbbing grooves on a balmy June night in a happy city - and an overdue, multi-day hang with dear old friends - stand as my signature memory of an all natural trip.
The tour heads west and is set to conclude - perhaps actually finally - with three dates in San Francisco in mid July.
As a long time Deadhead and Cubs fan, this was a fun read. It was great to meet you at the Jim Lauderdale show the next night! While I was interrupting your evening with friends, I furthered the "Dead & Slow" trope when we chatted. I ended up having a solo night with nothing on the agenda and watched the first night at Oracle field live in San Francisco. I was thoroughly entertained and really felt like I'd missed out on a great tour. In the second set they had this Dark Star / Big River / Cumberland Blues amalgam that I still don't fully understand how they pulled off playing two songs at once. Pretty interesting stuff, and worth another listen down the road. So a big mea culpa from me, D&C looked like a blast from the show I was able to stream. Have fun with those new Zu speakers!
Excellent, Craig. Didn't know you were a GD fan, though I mighta. Donna G. so dug a record I made of Songs with Peter Monk that she brought me last October to Muscle Shoals to record with her favorite guys, and became a closer friend in the offing. If you like, you can check it out at frankgoodman-buzzholland.com, or I'll send you one. Still writing and recording a lot at 70, and life is good in Portland. Hope you and the family are better than well, and love to you all. Frank Goodman frankxx11@gmail.com