10 Concerts

 

Day 1: Queen on Halloween in New Orleans [Municipal Auditorium 10/31/1978]

I was a freshman in college.  I had attended my first concert (if you don't include being my mom's date for Tony Bennett and Sammy Davis Jr when I was a kid) just a few months before at Red Rocks.  (First concert at Red Rocks - how lucky am I?)  But that had been arranged at the last minute and I was there mainly as a wing man for my friend Andrew Ellis.  (I had even so completely forgotten who we'd seen that I had to look it up last year.)

I had landed at a school I didn't choose in a place that I didn't really want to be.  I had just turned 17 and I was really not ready to be away from home on my own in college.  I quickly fell in with the hippie clique on my floor in the freshman dorm.  Roy's dad was a VP for Aramco in Saudi Arabia so Roy had spent a large amount of his time in the American compound. So, he was ready for anything and everything that didn't include school. Joe was pre-med (not sure why we never really recruited him for Sammy) and I'm sure that Roy and I weren't a good influence.

Queen on Halloween just seemed too good to be true.  I had no money and I'm pretty sure that Roy bought my ticket.  This was before the Who's concert in Cincinnati so seating was "festival style".  Roy was short, agile, and swift so we ended up about 8 rows back on the floor.  And it was just crazy.  Costumes, headbangers, hippies,  Topless girls sitting on their dates shoulders throwing bras at Freddie Mercury.  A sweaty, steaming, bacchanal New Orleans style from the same folks who chant "Show your tits!" and those that do during Mardi Gras.  I had done most of my growing up in the city in Chicago so I wasn't entirely naive.  But this still made quite an impression!

As for the concert itself, it was good but not great.  It started late which I just assumed was how rock concerts went.  It was actually the release party for the Jazz album.  They debuted Bicycle and Fat Bottomed Girls which were fun but not up to their previous standards.  Bohemian Rhapsody had been one of the songs that had penetrated my pre-musically inclined brain so I was disappointed when they left the stage and played tape for the middle section.  (Knowing what i know now, its amazing they did any part of it live.)  But the rest of it was great.  And, it was fun watching Freddie Mercury strut!  According to this web site (https://www.queenlive.ca/queen/78-10-31.htm), Freddie had some interesting banter with the audience including this quote "I'm going backstage for a rest - maybe get a blow job. Hell, it's Hallowe'en, right?"  Which pretty much sums up the spirit of the show.

So that was my first real concert and it’s no wonder I've seen so many since!

Day 2: The Grateful Dead @ McNichols Arena in Denver 8/13/1979

This is gonna be the sanitized version.  But, if you know, you know. You know?

My first Grateful Dead concert was two days before with my best bud Mark Levine at Red Rocks.  (First Dead concert at Red Rocks - how lucky am I?)  It came, unfortunately, at the end of what I have referred to ever since as the camping trip from hell.  Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong - including losing my glasses on the hike in. It was so bad, I didn’t camp out for the next 40 years. So that first Dead show was great but I was exhausted..I fell asleep during Drums/Space.  But they sent us off with US Blues and I wanted more.  So I scalped a pair of tickets to the last show of the run two days later.

Red Rocks, in those days, was a bit different than it is now.  The seating areas were larger for example and people set up in what is now the aisle and not on the seats.  Seating was all GA.  And, for a Dead show, that meant that folks pretty much camped out around the park and started getting in line in the middle of the night.  So a working stiff like me had no chance to get a good seat.

The other major difference was that there was no roof over the performers (https://images.app.goo.gl/cKAkKZjAbFFRQKVy9) so rain was a real problem.  And, it does rain in Colorado in the summer sometimes by the bucket load.  They had to plan for that - concerts were moved indoors to McNichols Arena when the forecast was for heavy rain like the show the day after the Red Rocks show.

I was just getting on the way when they announced that the show was being moved indoors.  Instead of being my usual 2/3rds of the way up at Red Rocks, I was young, not very fast, nor very agile, but still got a spot on the floor about 8 rows back.  Never saw the Dead closer.  My buddy Mark couldn’t go to the show so I went with a friend of a friend that we were hanging out with that summer.  We sat next to this older head and his wife from Chicago.  Older.. like 40s older.  I thought he was ancient.  Hell, he’d seen the Dead in the 60s.

As we had been waiting for them to open the doors, I had bought a little something from some dude snaking his way through the crowd.  And some time in the middle of the first set, the Dead went into Bertha and I had this intense spiritual vision of things I could do that would change my life and make me a better person.  (Narrator: they didn’t and he wasn't.)  Absolutely just tears streaming down the face shit.  The rest of the concert was a blur.  I’m sure it was great.  The second set was Promised Land, Ship of Fools, Samson & Delilah, Terrapin Station-> Playin' In The Band-> Drums-> Not Fade Away-> Stella Blue-> Good Lovin', E:U.S. Blues-> E: Johnny B. Goode.  But I will never forget that Bertha.

Now, here’s the thing.  I’ve seen the set list.  I’ve listened to the bootleg.  And, they absolutely did not do Bertha that night.  Well, who are you going to believe, the tape or my vivid memory?

Now, I’m sure that I forgot to mention that the friend of a friend I was with let me know during the show that I had to drive him home. And that home was in the hills. That was not the best of timing for that little tidbit of information. And, by that, I mean that was really not the best of timing .  Pretty much any time before that encounter with the dude snaking through the crowd would have been a much better time.  So my other crystal clear memory of that evening was, after dropping him off, driving down a dirt canyon road in Turkey Creek Canyon, in my 64 Chevy Impala, with one headlight out and no dashboard lights, white knuckled, repeating “Please let me make it down, please let me make it down” over and over to myself until I reached the safety of Highway 285 late at night.

Good times.

Day 3: Commander Cody @ Ole Man Rivers in New Orleans 11/16/1979

This is another story that is going to be sanitized to protect the newly innocent.

I mentioned being at school at Tulane and falling in with the hippie clique on my floor.  Well, Roy’s roommate Brian was in a fraternity.  Hell, everybody at Tulane was in a fraternity. It was still very southern that way.  When I got to school, I hadn’t considered joining a frat because only rich kids did. But, at Tulane, it seemed like it was something that everything did so we tagged along with Brian to spring rush.  It turned out that Brian had joined the hippie Jewish fraternity on the end of the block.  Why the hippie Jewish fraternity since Brian was neither hippie nor Jewish?  I have not idea.  Since everybody joined a fraternity or sorority, everybody  had their own.  Even the hippies on the end of the  block.

I met Howard Feldman at the first rush party and we became immediate best friends.  Like we had known each other all our lives.  And, in the frat house, everyone congregated in Denis Vogel's room.  It was groovy, he was groovy, and his music was groovy.  He and Howard shared a lot of music tastes and those naturally became my tastes as well.  One of the bands that they introduced me to (I don’t remember who was first) was Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.  And they soon became one of my favorite bands too.

So when Cody came through New Orleans my sophomore year, we had to go.  Now this wasn’t the original Lost Planet Airmen (I’m not old enough to have seen them).  But it was still the most complete Cody band that I’ve seen.  We got there early and snagged the table right in front.  Its amazing how many of these stories are going to involved being up close and personal with the band.  Because we were up close.  And we did get personal with the band.  It was a different, more free-wheeling time in 1979.  And we decided to pass some of  the “intoxicants” that we were enjoying up to the members of the band.  We certainly didn’t mind sharing, and they didn’t seem to mind being shared with.  And then at intermission, while Denis and I were standing at the bar, who walks up but the Commander himself.  So, we did what anyone would do, bought him a shot and told him how much we were enjoying the show!  That was great.  And the show was fun.  And that was the first of my five decades of seeing Commander Cody.

Day 4”: Gibson Jazz Party @ The Paramount Theater in Denver sometime in 1980?

Denver was very fortunate that noted jazz impresario Dick Gibson ran a yearly “Jazz Party” in various mountain towns over the Labor Day weekend where he invited great jazz players to come play together.  For 15 years, he also held a yearly “Jazz Party” concert at the Paramount Theater in Denver. And being Dick Gibson, he was able to attract incredible talent.

Of course, I didn’t really know any of this in 1980.  I had transferred from Tulane to CU which is where I had wanted to go to school all along.  That meant leaving a girlfriend behind.  But Melissa Freeman Spyrison came out to visit.  And, like many 19 year old boys, I wanted to appear more sophisticated, more mature than I really was.  Melissa had played classical piano so it was always a struggle to find music that impressed her.  (Although she did claim to like some Emerson, Lake, and Palmer)  It just so happened that the Gibson Jazz Party was happening and jazz seemed like a good bet.  Of course, our seats were in the balcony, but I don’t think that really mattered.

I hadn’t really “discovered” jazz yet.  My friends who listened to jazz, listened to jazz I  didn’t particularly like. But this show opened up a whole new world for me.  The players I remember were Phil Woods, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and Zoot Simms.  Musicians came and went from the stage.  I didn’t fully appreciate what I was seeing, but I did really enjoy it.  The music turned out to be a whole lot more sophisticated than I was!

Jazz concerts were always my go-to sophistication move.  I took Melissa Fear to see Chick Corea and Gary Burton the following year and look where that got me!

Day 5: The Grateful Dead @ Red Rocks 7/27/1982

I graduated college in 1982 and took a job in New Jersey.  Like most new graduates, I was happy to be out of school and eager to start my adult life.  (Oh, if my almost 60 year old self could give advice to my just turned 21 year old self.  But he wouldn’t have listened anyway.) And the Grateful Dead showed up for a three night stand at Red Rocks just as I was leaving. 

I was only able to attend the first show.  The weather was beautiful.  Clear skies with that beautiful view of Denver skyline.  The music was magical.  I remember a particularly steller Terrapin Station.  The first set ended with China/Rider and then it was probably the best second set that I ever saw: Playin' In The Band-> Terrapin Station-> Drums-> The Wheel-> The Other One-> Stella Blue-> Playin' In The Band, E: U.S. Blues.  It was happy and sad (I was saying goodbye to my girlfriend Melissa Fear) and spiritual and music you could totally get lost in.

The next morning (way too early), my friend Mark and I got into my old Cadillac and got onto the road.  20 some hours later we arrived at my buddy Bob Perper's house and my adult life started!

(This is going to be the last Dead show on this list.  Some of you are going to wonder why the Red Rocks show we took our wedding party to did not make this list.  At least the two of you who were at that show may wonder that.  Well, there are only 10 shows on this list and I felt like two shows were enough for any band.  And, by agreement of all of us who went, that Red Rocks show was pretty mediocre.  It was a daytime show, in the heat, and it looked like it was taking its toll on a not-so-healthy Jerry.  I’ve listened to the tape, It’s not as bad as I remember.  But it’s still not nearly the quality of the two I included. Don’t worry though, we are not done with the Dead yet.  Don’t understand?  Stick around.)

Day 6: Clearwater Revival Festival @ Croton Point Park 6/19/1983

This was my first music festival.  I went with a friend from work, Sonja Husby.  We didn’t work together, but she was friends with my office mate and would come up and visit.  Sonja and I dated for a bit but she was much older than me so that relationship didn’t last.  But the friendship did.  She even came to our wedding with her then boyfriend.  I believe they even went to the Dead show mentioned yesterday.  (Unfortunately, we lost touch when I moved back to Colorado.  The internet wasn’t a thing yet.  And I think she passed away young.  At least that is what google suggests.)

The Hudson River Revival Festival AKA The Clearwater Revival Festival was a small yearly festival that Pete Seeger and his wife ran.  The purpose was (and is still) to raise money to clean up the Hudson River.  It was, at that point, held in Croton Point Park on the Hudson in the town of Croton-on-Hudson.  Very creative with names, those 18th century Americans.

Sonja had a friend who lived nearby so she had been to the festival before.  The festival ran 11-8 each day, so we’d drive up to her friend’s house (did I mention the friend had 4 or six or eight cats?), have breakfast and all go to the festival.  As you might imagine, a folk festival curated by Pete Seeger would have a wide variety of folk music from around the world.  Sure,  there were your basic banjo and fiddle players, but there were also bagpipes and cloggers, and step dancers and Central American singers and dulcimers played with hammers and Avner the Eccentric.  For an American kid like me, it was a two day education in music from around the world.

It was great to be able to see Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie.  And Sweet Honey in the Rock was wonderful.  But the act that really made it special and put it on this list (because I’m sure that was Pete’s intention) was “Women of the Calabash”.  Three African women, (narrator: they weren’t African.  Well I assumed they were African because they were dressed in African robes playing a percussion instrument I’d never seen before and I probably thought that the Calabash was an area in Africa like the Casbah or the Kalahari.)  They were playing Shekeres (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shekere) and watching and listening to them play was just entrancing.  It was almost like watching a rhythm dance of the hands.

I had been exposed to a bit of African rhythm in college.  Melissa Fear and I took a dance class my senior year (college credits for dance - booyah!) and one of the dances that we had learned was a traditional South African thing.  I had enjoyed it and had picked up a record or two.  But this was my first experience of it live and I was blown away.  Unfortunately, I was still an American dude living in northern New Jersey i the 80s and I had no idea that you could learn to play instruments like that.  (I believe they call that foreshadowing in literature.)

If you are interested in Women of the Calabash, you can find them on youtube. https://youtu.be/3y5QvWsjthU?t=137

Amazingly, all the festival guides are online.  Here is the one from 1983 https://www.clearwaterfestival.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/1983CompleteRevivalProgramBook.pdf

Day 7: Tony Bennett @ Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater Greenwood Village 8/8/2000

This one’s all about mom.

My dad always said that mom’s favorite singer was Frankie Laine.  And that may have been true at some point.  All I know is that mom didn’t play any Frankie Laine records when I was growing up.  Instead, I listened to a heavy rotation of Tony Bennett, Fiddler on the Roof, and My Fair Lady with the occasional Frank Sinatra or Oklahoma! thrown in.

When I was a kid, dad was gone a lot.  And I mean a lot.  Mom didn’t drive.  So, when we lived in smaller towns (Charleston, St. Petersburg, Bakersfield) without good transportation, that meant that mom was stuck at home.  Chicago was a different story.  Mom was a city girl who enjoyed everything a city offers.  She didn’t, however, like going out alone.  So I became her date.  Which meant I got to see some things I was not old enough to see (great for Blazing Saddles, probably less appropriate for Cabaret). I got to see Fiddler on the Roof on stage and both Tony Bennet and Sammy Davis Jr. in clubs.

Years later, after we moved back to Colorado from New Jersey, Tony Bennet showed up in Denver one year around mom’s birthday.  So, I took her as a birthday present.  And then he kept coming back around the same time of year so it became our yearly mother-son date.  And this one was special.

Melissa had gotten tickets and she outdid herself.  We were second row center.  I usually hate Fiddler’s Green but that night it wasn’t particularly crowded and our seats were obviously great.  Diana Krall opened and she was wonderful, but this was all about Tony.

Now, I’ve seen Tony a bunch of times.  Beyond the most famous, I don’t really know all the songs.  Probably because at one point or another I think he did all the songs.  So I couldn’t really tell you what he did.  I can tell you that I don’t recall ever seeing a happier look in my mom’s eyes than she had at the end of that show.  She said that it felt like he was singing right to her the entire night.  She was walking on clouds. 

I miss you mom.  I love you.  And this one’s for you.

Day 8: Nahko & Medicine for the People @ Gathering of the Vibes, Seaside Park Bridgeport, CT 8/1/2014

30 years after our last Clearwater Revival Festival (we also went in 1984), we finally went our next festival. For many years, our vacation time was spent on Cam’s sporting events or visiting Melissa’s parents first in California then in Pennsylvania.  Once Cam graduated college, we decided that we were going to start taking one trip a year just for us.

My friends Michael and Debbie Hotz had been going to Gathering of the Vibes for years.  Michael volunteered ostensibly to get his parking paid for but I think really just to socialize.   It was (and unfortunately the tense there is past) a jamband festival with many of the bands that I wanted to see all in a weekend.  And, best of all, if you booked early, you could stay in a hotel with a shuttle.  As my mom often said, I don’t mind camping out just as long as I’m sleeping in a hotel bed.  So, we got it in our heads that this would be a fun trip - we’d get to see good friends and hear good music all in one bundle.  And, when they announced the lineup with several bands that were really high on our list of bands to see, the decision was made.

The festival itself was great.  Everything was pretty damn perfect.  The weather was spectacular - not too hot and we always managed to find shade.  A big breakfast every day in the hotel  made up for the limited food options on site although the vegetarian tacos were great.  The chance to see John Fogerty was one of the reasons we went and he did everything you’d want to see John Fogerty do.  I had discovered Rodrigo y Gabriela on Austin City Limits a few months before and they were another of the acts that we wanted to see.  Their set was terrific. So good, we googled them immediately after their set and learned that they were going to be at Red Rocks later that summer, and we bought tickets before the next band went on.

As my family can attest, when it comes to vacations, I’m a planner.  I put together daily itineraries of things we want to do and places we are going to eat.  I buy tickets and make reservations well in advance.  I want to get the most out of my travels and prior proper preparation prevents piss poor performance.  This attitude extends to music festivals too.  Before we go, I will have listened to all the acts to decide which ones I want to see.  (And let me tell you, when that festival was the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, that was a ton of work!)

Listening to all the acts that were going to be at Vibes that I’d never heard of before, one in particular stood out - a band called Nahko & Medicine for the People. The music was different (and not really jammy) but definitely catchy.  And I thought Melissa would enjoy.  So that got marked as a definite “todo”.

Nahko exceeded all my expectations.  He was on a smaller stage and it was crowded.  And, more than any band I’ve ever seen, the fans felt like a tribe.  Yes, even more than deadheads.  Everybody was bouncing up and down and singing along.  The songs were stories of personal growth, spiritual healing, and the community of humankind.  Medicine for the People was exactly right.  It was certainly medicine for me.  And Melissa felt it even more strongly.  We’ve seen Nahko many times since and as he has gotten more popular, that overwhelming sense of tribal belonging has dissipated.  But I will never forget that first show. 

Day 9: Dark Star Orchestra @ Runaway Bay Jamaica acoustic 1/19/2018

Many of my closest friends live outside of Colorado and I miss seeing them.  It has long been a hope of mine that we would find ways to vacation together.  In 2018, that finally happened.  One of the options that was high on the list that Melissa and I have for our yearly trip for ourselves was to go to Dark Star Orchestra’s “Jam in the Sand” in Jamaica which combines two of our favorite things, music of The Grateful Dead and Jamaica.  Dark Star Orchestra is a (the?) Grateful Dead tribute band.  And while we’d only been to Jamaica once, Cam was born approximately nine months later so we have fond memories. 

It turned out that our friend Michael Hotz was also thinking about going to Jam in the Sand to celebrate his mumble-mumble-th birthday,  So, when we sent the “Hey all, we’re planning on going to Jam in the Sand this year” email, Michael & Debbie Hotz and Carla and Denis Vogel all decided to go too.

There had been serious storms across the southern part of the US so getting there turned out to be an adventure that I’m sure I wrote about somewhere, but that somewhere was apparently not Facebook.  (Of course, I’m sure that I saw Bertha in 1979 so take that for what it’s worth.)  And, the weather forecast for Jamaica was not all that promising.

The first night was fun.  It rained a bit but what is a caribbean vacation without a bit of liquid sunshine?  Dark Star Orchestra’s unique twist is re-creating specific Grateful Dead shows.  So, my enjoyment of their shows is mostly driven by the set list of the show they are re-creating.  Unfortunately, also often true of the Dead themselves in their later years - mostly mediocre first sets often but not always redeemed by transcendent second sets.  The first night’s show was one of those, good but not great.

The following day, it rained the whole day and they were forced to take the show inside in the resort’s dining room.  And that meant going acoustic.  DSO brings opening acts with them for the weekend and that year’s opening act was Hot Tuna.  Melissa and I both love acoustic Jorma so getting to see songs like Hesitation Blues, Wining Boy, and I Am the Light of This World done acoustically in a really intimate setting was great.

The DSO set began inauspiciously.  Unfortunately, I got into a heated debate with someone who really wanted to explain to me why Trump voters were honest decent people who only had America’s best interests at heart when rightly electing Trump.  I did not, as you might imagine, agree.  So, with the warm glow of Hot Tuna’s now far behind me, I sat tensely and in less than the most receptive frame of mind as DSO took the stage.  And, they made my world wonderful again. I had never seen the Dead play acoustically so getting to see songs they only did acoustically like Monkey and the Engineer and Dark Hollow was great.  But the real treat was seeing songs from Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty that were written to be played acoustically.  Uncle John’s Band is one of my top-5 dead songs.  It takes me back to a particularly happy moment in my childhood that happened long before I’d ever heard the song.  Box of Rain is another song that has always had deep meaning to me even more so after my dad passed away. 

The total highlight of the evening was Ripple though.  Melissa’s favorite song and one she’d never gotten to see live before.  The smile on her face as she listened and swayed is something I will hold onto forever.

Day 10: Dark Star Orchestra @ Runaway Bay Jamaica 1/20/2018

The day following the acoustic show was another rainy day.  DSO had pulled off an acoustic show but it wasn’t something they had planned for.  They’d even had to borrow the guitars that they’d played on.  (I know, it’s a complete shock that people attending a festival of the music of The Grateful Dead brought guitars with them.  I bet there were some drums too :-) )  I don’t think they were up for trying again.  So, wait for the rain to subside, we did, as Yoda recollected.  The rain would let up, the band would come out, the rain would increase, they’d go back and we’d get wet. Rinse and repeat.

Finally, the rain let up enough for the band to start but it didn’t stay dry for long.  And the band decided to just play on.  Most folks did the proper adult thing and found shelter as best they could.  Most folks.  Some of us, made of hardier stock, continued to dance our asses off in front of the stage.

Here’s the thing.  Sometimes, when the music is hot, and the rain is falling, and you are soaked, and dancing, and you can’t even see, you just give yourself up to the rain gods.  And, if you are lucky, the music and the rain on your face and your body moving in time all melts completely into the here and now and the experience is all there is.  This has happened for me twice, once during driving rainstorm during a Tom Petty concert at Fiddler’s Green and once in Jamaica.  And it’s as good an experience listening to music as it gets..

I have to repeat a quick story about the trip home.  This I did write on facebook but you’ve probably forgotten it.  And if you haven’t, tough - it’s my timeline and I’ll do what I want to.  As we were coming back through customs in Atlanta, the customs agent took my form, looked at my Grateful Dead tee-shirt, long hair, and disheveled appearance and asked “You aren’t bringing any of those funny cigarettes back are you?”  And, without missing a beat, I replied “No, I’m from Colorado!”  I gave him my sweetest smile and he waved me through.  

Encore: Santana / Trombone Shorty New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival 4/26/2019

Every concert needs an encore and so does this list.

In the couple of years that I attended Tulane, I did not go to Jazzfest.  It was smaller then, without the big pop acts they eventually brought in.  It was at the end of the school year.  There were papers and finals and getting ready to go home.  Still, it was a missed opportunity and as the years passed its pull got stronger and stronger.

We decided to go last year for our yearly trip.  We took Cam and his girlfriend and a college friend of his and her girlfriend.  It was overall a great trip.  Neither Melissa nor Cam had ever been to New Orleans so it was a nice opportunity to walk them around all the places they’d heard stories about.  I hadn’t been since attending a conference there sometime in the mid-80s so it was great to reconnect with my past.

Jazzfest is a family friendly festival.  It runs 11am - 7pm, Of course, you can also find music all over town all night long for the entire duration of the festival.  It runs over two weekends, the last in April and the first in May.  Usually, the first weekend is three days and the second is four.  But last year was the 50th anniversary edition so they expanded the first weekend to four days.  There are 13 stages including two big stages on either end of the fair grounds.  So, four days, eight headliners. 

Friday night we decided to see Santana.  We had only seen him once, many years ago.  He’d opened for The Grateful Dead in the bowl at Mile High Stadium.  Maybe it was the venue.  Maybe it was opening for the Dead.  Maybe it was the setlist (https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/santana/1991/mile-high-stadium-denver-co-2bd9b83e.html).  I was not bowled over.  I wasn’t bowled over by the Dead that night either - the mediocre first set was not redeemed in the second.  The entire show had been a disappointment.  So I had not been motivated to see him again and this seemed like a good opportunity to rectify that oversight.

Santana was great. Make no mistake about that. Made me regret not having seen him more over the years.  Much better setlist (https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/santana/2019/fair-grounds-race-course-new-orleans-la-5b935338.html), he did everything you’d really want him to do.  The band was great and his wife is incredible on the drums.  The band wraps up, does an encore, and the clock strikes 7.  And then, special happened.

New Orleans is home to a lot of great musicians.  And those musicians take a great deal of pride in being New Orleans musicians.  It’s a thing, it’s a family.  And it seems that in each generation of New Orleans musicians, somebody steps into the role of being the unofficial musical hosts of the festival.  These days, that person is Trombone Shorty.  He is the closing act on the final weekend.  And the Saturday night of the first weekend he hosts a big party concert with a bunch of the musicians playing the festival.  (We went to that and it was great.)

So, the clock strokes 7pm and Trombone Shorty walks out on stage.  He laments the fact that it’s already 7pm,  says they’re going to do a little something, and then rips into one of the great half hours of music that I’ve ever seen.  I didn’t know that you could play heavy metal trombone but the cover of Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) did Jimi proud, Shorty and Santana trading riffs. Then they slipped into Total Destruction to Your Mind which I was proud that I  recognized as a Swamp Dogg cover.  Fever, September, and Smooth followed, each hotter than the last with Short trading riffs with Carlos, Carlos’s trombonist, and Carlos’s wife.  When they ended with Love, Peace, and Happiness we were drained and fulfilled.

And those are 10 Concerts and an Encore that were memorable. If this sells well, you may see a 10 More Concerts and an Encore next year!