Sometimes the dominoes line up just right in Dead Land. You get a near perfect location, some near perfect weather, all the right songs, a near perfect band and all the right, near perfect people to share it all. The Never Miss A Sunday Show credo was in full effect last night as our favorite musicians conquered altitude and any other universal resistance that could attempt to quell their continuing momentum. It would be difficult for a bunch of Heads to have a shitty time in a state that’s one of the most beautiful ones we have in the USA. A place where buying marijuana products is as easy as filling your gas tank. Colorado has always been a sort of Shangri-La for US granola and whole wheat, tree hugger types. Over the years, many of the folks I went to High School with left NJ and headed west to pursue careers at ski resorts while honing their skills at growing The Magic Broccoli. It was always a place to go for those of US who craved the finer things in life… Beautiful Landscapes, kind inhabitants, clean air and water, P Buds, all that stuff. I understand the band is considering a full tour at various locations only in Colorado!(I’ll laugh pretty hard if that one gets some legs)

When you open with Stranger, you definitely know it’s gonna get Stranger! That tune has always seemed to get played when everybody just feels like taking the music to new heights. Many a face melting night have been started that way and last night was no exception. The Warlocks, 10-9-89 immediately calls itself forward in my mind. It may have started on the sluggish side but it seemed to gather momentum as it rolled down the musical hill of life. The jams throughout showed John’s respect for Garcia’s blueprint along with his ability to infuse his own guts into it. Weir proclaimed, “This one is for the kids” and the Junior Parker cover, Next Time You See Me, was the bust out of the evening. John’s inherent style probably is closest to Pigpen’s making it a fantastic choice. That’s right up his alley and as a big fan of the blues, it’s right up mine too! We were going to Church on Sunday without a doubt but it seems we went to the earlier service yesterday when Samson and Delilah showed up in the first set. The jams were almost everything you would want from that tune. The solos in Samson always take a vicious run up the ladder of sonic delight before sliding back down to the bottom to do it all over again. It seems the notes get fired across our musical canvas from one end to the other, covering all of it with a thick and majestic layer of abundant joy. I remember Garcia just planted on his piece of carpet watching his own fingers as he peeled off notes in machine gun style, blasting our minds while doing so in a seemingly effortless fashion that required no flashy shit or anything like that. When he was making his way back to the chorus, the notes would get gradually more intense as he would squeeze the last of them in before bending his knees a couple of inches and pushing up his glasses just in time to make it to the mic and sing, “If I had my waaaaaaaayyyyy! If I had my waaaaaaayyyy!!!” That would cause the top of your skull to open up as fireworks shot out. That didn’t happen but Samson was outstanding!

I personally don’t like the way anybody other than Garcia sings West LA. I know there’s plenty of you that don’t agree with me and I’m glad you still enjoy it. I’m not sure I ever realized how difficult it was to deliver some of the Garcia tunes until Garcia graduated from this plane of existence. Tunes like West LA flowed so naturally through him it all seemed easy. A sign of a master is often when one makes the impossible appear easy. That was definitely Garcia… Birdsong was spacey and found great improvisation throughout. As it melted into nothingness it became New Speedway and that’s always just fine by US! Another moment I’ll never forget was the New Speedway bust out, the first in over 20 years at the Oakland Coliseum, 02/19/1991. I was in the aisle, Phil’s side, lower tier when the opening riffs began. At Garcia’s opening lyric, the entire Coliseum erupted. Some knew why, others didn’t but participated anyway. Every hair on my body tingled, stood up and started dancing along with me. Talk about an intermission filled with hugs from family as well as strangers. You just kind of grabbed anyone you noticed that really understood what just happened and squeezed them as hard as you could! The New Speedway last night was great and the vocal ending brought forward the slightly chilling nature that’s contained within the context of the tune. Tremendous first set!

As a commercial at intermission, It’s a good time to report on something that has been a goal of mine for a long time. I always thought it would be great if a musician would wear shirts with a picture of one of US on them. Why not? We wear shirts with their likenesses every day, why shouldn’t they wear a shirt with ours? While in NYC last week, that vision was fully realized. I’d like to thank my brother Oteil for making it a reality. It may very well be the highlight of my musical voyage and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to top this pic. I may have officially peaked on this long strange trip. In the family of popular memes like this one

I present to you the pinnacle of my career as a DeadHead and reporter for The Official Home of Unofficial Grateful Dead and Music News!

So many things had to happen at just the right time in order for that to take place. My friend “Brother Bob” gave me that shirt with airbrushed me on it at Citifield and I got the batik of Oteil in the mail the same day as the pic. It was made by my bro, Ted Covell in conjunction with another brother, Bob Municchi. You can find them on FB if you don’t know them already for an Oteil batik. I know my face is scary on that one and I told Oteil he could hang it on his fence to keep geese out of the pool. What a funny moment!!! I still laugh when I see that pic! It’s an incredible testimony of Oteil’s sense of humor and he’s been a real blessing to me in many ways. He’s not Stirfry tho, he doesn’t give up any information and I don’t ask him for it. Love you forever!

“Not another China-Rider” said nobody ever, as the second set immediately pulled into high gear! China Rider opens the door to a field of endless possibilities and is another tune that has consistently been part of many a magical night. This night was following a path that leads to euphoric experience as it was obvious that everyone was clearly in the proper state of consciousness for something completely transcendental to take place. The playing was properly paced and intense. The connections between all members of the hive had all of US buzzing with that extra special substance of universal intelligence that gives wings to a bird and gills to a fish. The intelligence that courses through time and space bringing about order from chaos and creating ways to organize the chronically disorganized. After a full blast of China Rider, a blanket of psychedelic spiritual energy covered the air as He’s Gone rose to be called up next. Smokestack Lightning emerged seamlessly from what seemed like an abbreviated vocal closing to He’s Gone, reminiscent once again of River Bend Music Center on 06-24-85. Smokestack cleared and the vocal jam at the end of He’s Gone reemerged to be finished in a way that was smooth and natural and beautiful as it could be. It seemed as though Weir may have been struggling to the finish line heading towards the break he gets at drums. I figured maybe it was the elevation, maybe it was the abundance of hybrid weed created by botanical geniuses in Colorado. I must have been wrong because instead of calling it halftime, he went for another vocal marathon with Let It Grow. That one is no easy song to sing if you’re a little gassed already but Weir completely gave himself to the intensity of the experience and trusted the organizing intelligence, that was clearly circulating strongly, to provide the wind required to take flight yet again. At times like this, one is able to realize the power, that is much greater than US, that is able to continue fueling what appears to be empty. What a moment it was! Oteil was like the Ray Charles of bass swinging back and forth like a human metronome. The playing was deep and divinely inspired. It’s safe to say our faces got stolen right off our heads!

Coming out of Space it seemed like I heard a little bit of everything. Some notes from the Other One, a chord or two from Watchtower, some notes from Miracle. All before making way for the Dark Star. As we consider the deep and inspirational thread of invisible organizing intelligence that seemed to permeate this night, surrendering to Dark Star was a perfect choice. After recharging on some Oxygen during Drums and Space, Weir used everything that he replenished himself with to deliver extended notes as he called to the Heavens the lyrics of Dark Star. The only thing that could make this any better would be a Dew. In my mind, I headed back to Winterland 02-24-74. When Dark Star faded into the universe and left a blank page to draw upon, the opening notes of my all time favorite post space Garcia ballad emerged. The Dew is an experience that I’ll treasure as long as I live and then throughout eternity. If my soul was a song, it would be The Dew. Another song that nobody can get remotely close to Garcia’s delivery. That being said, Weir was fantastic and full of emotion as he lead us deeper into ourselves. The moment changed from musical notes into a staircase that was constructed to allow me to travel deeper inside of my life’s experience. I climbed deeper as I stepped down each stair slowly, gradually and timidly yet completely committed to the journey. The first half of the experience brought me to the core of who and what I am and at one point I think I saw the Hallelujah Lady in the front row but wasn’t sure if it was just an illusion. Just as the lyric drove me deeper into my core, the soloing that followed lifted me up the same staircase I had previously descended with a renewed sense of being and complete and total fulfillment taking shape. It’s the journey we’ve all been taking all these years. As the music built, it added fuel to the fire of enlightenment as we all were being carried further along the road less traveled. It was like a moment sitting naked before the creator wondering how, as one of his creations, we could have doubted its existence. It peeled the dead skin off of my heart and left me to sit and watch myself bleed as I healed. As it all took place, I was equally as scared by the process as I was certain that it was going to end and heal for the better. Those are the moments that I’ve always lived for in Grateful Dead Land. The challenging mountains that the music pushes you to traverse when you’re completely surrendered to the experience. The moments you realize you’re no more significant than anybody and no less significant than anybody, all at the same time. That’s who I’ve become and that’s exactly how it happened. For that, I’m eternally Grateful to be Dead to The Core! The never ending reminder that in the closing line of the song, The notoriety won’t matter, the money will never matter, the exterior things of this world won’t matter, the challenges won’t matter, none of it… Guess it doesn’t matter… Anyway… As that one closes we are all acutely aware of how much the experience is really all that matters. It always did and it always will.

Great encores with Brokedown and US Blues but there’s nothing left to say and I was out of time an hour ago… No time for edits, excuse the typos. I Love you forever!!! What an amazing couple of weekends for ALL of US! The experience is alive and well and capable of reorganizing the neurology of all that surrender to the experience completely…

Dead To The Core,

Dean Sottile (pronounced So Tilly)
The Official Home of Unofficial Grateful Dead and Music News & Grateful Dean on Facebook
@gd50th on Twitter

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