UPDATE 4/11/20: Tune in tonight as Dead & Company re-broadcasts this show as part of their One More Saturday Night archival webcast series:
Dead & Company – Madison Square Garden – 11/14/17 – Full Video
For the second time in three years, Dead & Company opened a fall tour with a pair of shows at Madison Square Garden. And while that’s a great thing for New York heads, they’re also learning firsthand what Bay Area fans of the Grateful Dead and post-Dead iterations have known for decades: the first show or two after a long layoff will have moments that make a concertgoer feel as if they’re attending a public rehearsal. And while Sunday’s show had its flubs (“Cumberland Blues”), it also had three breakouts (“Greatest Story Ever Told”, “Beat It On Down The Line” and “Werewolves Of London”) and highlights (“Terrapin Station”, “The Other One”) that provided hopes of mid-tour momentum arriving by Tuesday.
The band opened with a loose jam for a couple minutes before a noticeably trimmer and smartly bespectacled Bob Weir led the band into “Hell In a Bucket” at the now-standard, relaxed, show-opening tempo. Lead guitarist John Mayer’s first blues-tinged leads served the song’s pace rather nicely, but a verse later his next solo was much more forceful and the band’s energy rose to match it before Bob nailed his signature falsetto on the song’s outro. John then switched to a fat, chunky guitar tone for the weather-appropriate “Cold Rain and Snow” and unleashed an alternatively fluid and staccato solo while bassist Oteil Burbridge’s nimble counterpoint rumbled beneath it; this song has become one of Mayer’s strongest vehicles in the current repertoire.
Watch “Hell In A Bucket” below, courtesy of the band:
Watch “Cold Rain And Snow” below, courtesy of Sean Roche:
Bob then announced he was deviating from the night’s set list, but hopes of another breakout were quickly set aside as “Me And My Uncle” was the call, complete with missed lyrics and an “early-tour” vibe during the instrumental break. As the song ended, John quickly counted in “Brown Eyed Women”, and a first-time listener could easily think Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter had written this song for him to sing–it’s one of the snappiest “hits” in the repertoire and John’s voice and delivery are ideal for its presentation. “Tennessee Jed” continued the now-country-tinged vibe, with Jeff Chimenti’s barrelhouse piano adding rowdy, sawdust-on-the-floor flavor to an already-strong version.
After a brief space jam changed the vibe from down-home to way-out, John and Bob faced each other and eased into “Bird Song”. After Bob delivered the first verse, John knocked out a jazzier lead with some nice chording augmented by drummer Bill Kreutzmann’s instinctual rolls, and after John sang the second verse another jam followed, with drummer Mickey Hart making numerous flourishes with his red brushes before returning to the final verse and chorus.
While it looked as though it could be the end of the set, Bob instead led the band into an early-tour surprise–the second-ever Dead & Company performance of the King Radio classic “Man Smart, Woman Smarter”, a Weir second-set staple at Grateful Dead shows from 1981 to 1995. Oteil’s falsetto backing vocals were reminiscent of the Neville Brothers’ guest appearances on the song at a few Grateful Dead shows, and Jeff’s Hammond B-3 organ solo recalled late Grateful Dead keyboardist Brent Mydland’s forceful performances of the song, but Chimenti made it his own as the set drew to a close after 67 minutes.
Thanks to Matt Frazier, you can watch the video of “Man Smart, Woman Smarter” below:
The band retook the stage just after 9:00 pm for the second set, and it was quickly obvious from the tuning that “Help On The Way” was the choice. The song started off normally enough. After John sang the first couple of verses, he tapped his effects board and pulled up the Mutron-pedal-induced tone that Jerry Garcia used for “Fire On The Mountain”, giving the song a completely different flavor before returning to the final verse. By the time “Slipknot” started, John had his full-on guitar face going, and the licks coming out of his guitar to show for it. Over the space of four minutes, John knocked out a solo that was technically brilliant, occasionally dissonant, and always beautiful while sticking to the song’s vibe. Berkeley by way of Berklee, indeed. Meanwhile, Oteil ran off on one of his more-felt-than-heard low-string tangents beautifully complemented all of this, and it was one of the two highlights of the night. After John’s flawless run through the closing transition, “Franklin’s Tower” followed in its usual spot and allowed both band and crowd to just cut loose and rock out for the better part of 10 minutes.
Watch “Help On The Way”, courtesy of the band:
After a quick stop to recover, Oteil stepped forward to deliver the vocals on “China Doll”, one of the most delicate songs in the repertoire, and one that can gently render an entire arena to reverential near-silence. It’s a welcome development that Oteil now sings several of the most beautiful Garcia-Hunter songs, as it’s nothing short of a genuine passing of the torch to one of Dead & Company’s “younger” members and one that bodes well for the band’s stated long-term plans.
Watch “China Doll” below, courtesy of Sean Roche:
The momentum continued with a monstrous, 17-minute version of “Estimated Prophet”. The reggae-tinged verses and mid-song solo delivered as always, but this version was set apart by the closing jam, which didn’t stick to the usual plan of just sort of slinking along and whisking its listeners along with it. Instead, this one gradually but steadily built over the space of ten minutes and concluded with John and Oteil facing each other and enthusiastically tearing up their respective fretboards, generating the second of the night’s two high points before giving way to the drummers.
The Billy and Mickey show was its usual, eventful self, complete with sampled voices coming from Mickey’s equipment, but there was a short loss of momentum when Mickey’s beam didn’t come through the PA, and the video cameras caught him gently motioning offstage to his tech, who quickly got it working. “Space” was a shorter affair, and it quickly bubbled over into a nice surprise for the New York crowd: a quick detour into John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme: Acknowledgement”, with Bob chanting the lyric before leading the band into “Stella Blue”.
Weir nailed the number—his vocal phrasings of “Stella Blue” worked well with the song’s deliberate pace. And for the second straight night, the band decided to swap the “rock out of space” and “Jerry weeper” slots to great effect, though tonight the band seemed to forget they’d decided to do so. A full stop ensued, and after quick onstage conversations to get everyone back on the same page, John led the band the band into a rousing and unexpected “St. Stephen” that ran for nearly 13 minutes. “St. Stephen” gave way to a strong “Not Fade Away”, complete with Billy and Mickey’s tribal drumming and more fiery work on the Hammond B3 from Jeff before the fade-out and the sing-along.
Watch “St. Stephen” below, courtesy of Sean Roche:
“U.S. Blues “brought the run to a satisfying close just before 11:00 p.m., and all things considered it certainly seemed like the rust that was evident last week at the Bay Area benefit and occasionally on Sunday has largely disappeared.
This train is rolling.
Watch “U.S. Blues” courtesy of Sean Roche:
Setlist: Dead & Company | Madison Square Garden | New York, NY | 11/14/17
I: Hell In A Bucket, Cold Rain & Snow, Me & My Uncle, Brown-Eyed Women, Tennessee Jed, Bird Song, Man Smart, Woman Smarter
II: Help On The Way > Slipknot > Franklin’s Tower, China Doll, Estimated Prophet > Drums > Space > A Love Supreme > Stella Blue, St. Stephen, Not Fade Away
E: U.S. Blues