Review For Deano

Strange how this post fits in with the previous few. While Matt Stairs was hitting that shot in LA, I was hanging out in State College, PA...home of the 3rd ranked, undefeated Lions. I was back in PA for an appraisal class/visit with the folks, that happened to coincide with a (Grateful) Dead reunion concert with the Allman Bros opening up. The last time I saw the Dead was 1984 & the Allmans was a few years before that. A few observations from the show:

Arenas at Dead concerts still smell like 1,000 simutaneously fired-up joints. Bic lighters have been replaced by glow sticks. Tie-dye apparently will never die. Dudes still wear doo rags & the girls still wear sun dresses. The scraggly haired, sun dress look was much sexier on the skinny 22 year old girls of 1984 then it is on their more robust contemporaries. Countless grey ponytails. Older Deadheads have swollen bellies and swollen prostates...the concession/bathroom lines were ridiculous. Seeing four 50 something, tie-dyed people get out of a BMW is a bit off. Seeing a family of four tie-dyed folks roll out of a VW was spot on.

If you can imagine Bruce Dern lost in the jungle for 4 months, then you can picture Bob Weir...fortunately his voice is still there. Phil Lesh sings a lot more these days and sounds good. The drumming is still amazing. We moved to a spot right behind/above the drum riser and took it all in from there. The highlight of the night was the Allmans encore performance of "Whipping Post." They had 3 drummers who just hammered them for 2 hours and Derek Trucks on guitar. No Bruce Hornsby. Not the best show they've ever done, but pretty decent. Closed with excellent version of "Not Fade Away." They may be touring next year...worth the price of admission.

The Phillies get in the playoffs once every 15 years or so. I'll get to see the rest of this series, but leave Sunday for a few weeks in Colombia. Will probably miss most of the world series. At least the Cowboys are imploding...there's always a silver lining!