Grateful Dean

Dead & Company visited a ganja factory then went on to prove that marijuana is indeed a performance enhancing vegetable. John took to Instagram yesterday posing in a marijuana infested building as his followers, with an average age of 12 but like John, beginning to trend much higher, immediately began finding a way to cultivate a weed habit. You can tell that a DeadHead didn’t invent that site. If a DeadHead invented that site, it would’ve been called InstaPound because we didn’t mess with that small shit. Ask an American DeadHead anything about Celsius temperatures or distances in kilometers and they don’t know shit. Ask them about metric weights and you’ll think you’re talking to a European. One thing every one of US is completely brilliant about it’s The Metric System of weight. I got to thinking about something. It seems like most DeadHeads are smoking much smaller joints nowadays. I wonder if that’s because Record Albums have been replaced by CDs. Remember breaking up about 3 grams of the sticky on an album cover and twisting it up in a Club. Man, you weren’t shit if you couldn’t roll a fattie with papers that didn’t have glue on em. We’d eat a bud before we used an EZ Wider or some other shit. Not only were we Bud Snobs but we were rollin paper snobs too. Then the Album covers were replaced by CD Covers. CD Covers can’t hold nearly as much bud as an album cover, thus my theory of why fatties got skinny. Fast forward even further and now the kids don’t even get the CDs, they just download shit. This must be the reason why young people are always smoking some kind of scientific concoction out of a newfangled electronic device. Marijuana products this day in age are resembling hash browns at Waffle House. They got the scatter, smother, dabs and all kinds of shit that the young folks put in their iPad vaporizer and smoke up. We could get high until we ran out of buds. Kids now can only get high until they run out of batteries. I’m starting to feel old when I explain to the Mayer fans how we used to smoke big fatties of the flower. They look at you like you’re some kind of fuckin Indian Chief talking about once owning Manhattan. I can’t keep up with it all. Ecstacy got traded for Molly. I’ve been clean a long damn time so the only Molly I ever did was a girl from the Midwest in a tent back in Deer Creek, Summer of 90. I hear it’s not the MDMA of our youth. Enough of all that…

It was clear from the start that the stop at the Weed Factory was gonna produce a Smokin Show! Cold Rain opened and by the time New Speedway came around Oteil was dancing like Jermaine Jackson on the Jackson 5 Victory Tour in 84. I got so happy watching him I damn near turned into a Unicorn Nugget on the spot! Getting a new one every night is great and the new one on night 1 in Broomfield was Smokestack. No coincidence there… Once again it felt much better to have your face melted by a man that wasn’t wearing women’s pants. It was clear early and often that everyone was happy to be in Colorado. The Candyman came around again and I think everybody Loves The Candyman. Once again, no coincidence there. Bertha was powerful as can be and one day they’re all gonna meet at the big explosive note all at the same time. John has been great but he hasn’t got to that note with everyone else at the same time yet. Sailor Saint makes all of US happy and rounded out a fantastic first set.

Help-> Slip-> Frank makes everyone a better human being and Mayer started to show some ability to get a little more melted down. If there’s anything that’s lacking in his game it’s the ability to get completely melted down in the Slipknot, Playin or Dark Star jams. I was listening to some of The Official Release from Chicago and Trey was definitely much better equipped naturally to get really weird. Trey can melt that shit down like a candle manufacturer! Jams got weird at FTW. I don’t think that’s gonna come with any more trips to the Green Mile, I think that’s gonna require some serious studying of The Acid Test. Billy is gonna have to dose the living shit out of Mayer a few times before he can get real with that flavor of jam. Unless you’ve experienced your brain reaching a liquified state, you’ll never fully get there. You just can’t fake it if you’ve never been so high that you thought you were choking on your back teeth. In order to achieve certain abilities, certain things have to happen first. John would benefit tremendously from some family crystal and a trip to Machu Picchu. That’s all I’m gonna say about that…

The jams in Dark Star were definitely improved and were breaking down properly at times. Black Peter came strolling out of Space and is a song with a thick stripe of blues down the middle of it which will always play into the hands of this group of musicians. Weir was tremendous throughout and at the end he was Running To See like a motherfucker!!! Totally tore the ass end off of that song then sewed it back on again! John’s solos blazed across the thunderous foundation laid down by Oteil’s thick and flavorful bass lines combining with the dragging feel of Billy and Mickey just dragging their equipment powerfully across the deep and emotionally rich landscape of the song. It was another one of many transcendental moments that was being channeled through Dead & Co as they travel across the country. It wasn’t Vegas 4/27/91 and they have a long way to go before that kind of thing happens but they’re starting to get closer to that level of playing. Once again. there’s no need to compare Mayer or anybody else to Garcia, it’s a whole different thing. Imagine if every time you made love to your wife she said, “That was good but you’re no Ron Jeremy!” She’d most likely be correct but why even make the comparison. This band is putting out the best product on the Grateful Dead market since The Garcia days and at times even surpassing some moments from the final years.

No time to edit, I gotta split. Love y’all MUCHO and there’s not one damn thing you can do about it!

Dead To The Core,

Dean Sottile (pronounced So Tilly)

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