The road never ends for jam-giants Dead & Company. Last weekend, the Grateful Dead offshoot stopped in Portland, OR and at The Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington State for two nights of Dead-inspired jams. It was an excellent weekend in the Pacific Northwest, with great music all around!
The videos below show two songs from different soundchecks. First up is a rough take on the Workingman’s Dead track “Easy Wind”, which the band would play for the first time in front of an audience that night in Portland. They refer to the original recording of the song at one point, quickly learning the changes so they could get the song just right for its performance that evening.
Next, the band takes an impromptu test-run of Erroll Garner‘ 1954 jazz standard “Misty”, which Bob Weir used to perform with his late partner-in-crime Rob Wasserman. The beautiful song fits perfectly with the serene setting of The Gorge.
It’s hard to deny that Dead & Company are having tons of fun on the road. With nightly dips into the Grateful Dead catalog of rarities, the musicians have endless material to entertain themselves with and to keep fans on the edge of their seats. Dead & Company wrap up their summer tour this week with four shows in California, hitting Irvine, Chula Vista, Wheatland, and a tour-closing performance at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA.
[H/T JamBase]