Health & Fitness
Grateful Dead Tribute in the Haight-Ashbury: There is Nothing like it!
If you weren't able to catch The Grateful Dead in the Haight-Ashbury, then The Eleven playing Grateful Dead music in the Haight-Ashbury is pretty darn close!
“It’s five o’clock. Where are you?” shouts my brother Pat from the cell phone in his rental car double-parked on California Street during rush hour. I think I hear the cable car bell in the background clanging loudly for him to move. He’d been killing time since arriving in San Francisco from Santa Cruz over an hour ago.
“I’m coming, I’m coming. I just have a little bit more work to finish up” says I, frantically writing an email with my right hand while putting on my coat and grabbing my bag with my left.
I run across four lanes of traffic and hop into his silver (aren’t all rental cars silver?) Chevy Aveo. We head up California to Divisadero, hang a left and 18 blocks later turn right on Haight. Right on Haight! We’re going to a Dead show!
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It’s 5:30pm now and we walk into the Milk Bar. Ryan (Keys), Nick (rhythm) and Joel (Drums1) of The Eleven are setting up their gear. They’ve already been there loading for a couple of hours, and the show won’t begin until 8:30p.m. Nick especially has a couple more hours to go – he has an insane amount of effects to arrange, with cables everywhere. The Eleven are doing a Grateful Dead Egypt 1978 show on this night, and Nick has brought along a special Peavey amp of the kind Bob Weir used in 1978. For one year only, mind you. I have no clue how Nick finds this stuff out, but I think it’s way cool!
Head to dinner at Magnolia Pub and Brewery, one block down from the Haight and Ashbury intersection. Have to get the New Speedway Bitter, of course! Beers, fries and andouille sausage later, and it’s already 8p.m. Time to head to the show! My brother runs the gauntlet of several requests of “Hey, I’ll buy a cigarette from you for a dollar," and after he gives away several cigarettes (who charges someone wearing a backpack in the Haight $1 a cig, anyway? That would just be bad karma) we make it to the show on time.
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We grab the two seats at the bar closest to the stage and beers in hand, the band launches into Bertha>Good Lovin. I always love Bertha to start a show – tradition combined with good energy combined with ease of playing for the band. Nice way to settle in. Candyman, El Paso> Row Jimmy. Looks Like Rain is next. Recently I’ve really gotten into Looks Like Rain, and Nick does a great job on this one, getting into a nice interplay with Paige. One of my favorite songs of the night. Ramble On Rose, Minglewood, Stagger Lee, BIODTL, and Deal close out the first set.
Pat and I head out for a snack at the Noodle House a block or two down from the Milk Bar. We ask for the hottest thing they have, and the stuff they give us is so hot I can only eat about a quarter of it. It’s getting towards the end of set break, so Pat just drinks the rest of his. All of it. He almost loses it walking back to the show.
Set two starts off with Ollin Arrageed. I had never heard this song before live, and Paul (Drums2) grabs one of those Egyptian drums and just wails on it. Very, very awesome start to the second set! It began Ollin Arrageed>Fire on the Mountain> Iko Iko, Miracle> It’s All Over Now. Then, Shakedown Street>Drums>Space> China Doll> Truckin>Stella Blue. When Clint gets to Stella Blue, I’m just standing in the front of the stage, eyes closed, totally lost in the music. One of my top Dead songs of all time, and The Eleven do a great job on it!
Around and Around, and then around and around one, set two is done!
Before they start their encore, Clint checks and is told by Milk Bar management they can play until 1:30a.m. For the encore they do: Jack Straw, Mississippi Half Step, China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider, Brokedown Palace.
It’s 1:45a.m. and Pat and I are on the mostly deserted early Thursday morning road, heading back to the wilds of Marin. We figure the guys in the band have a least an hour or two of packing to do before they can head home as well. We unload the 200 or so Dead cassette tapes Pat has given me (Score!), and I’m in bed around 3a.m.
Epilogue: In bed at 3a.m., up at 6a.m. to head to a full day of work. Well, ‘up’ isn’t the right word, really. More like ‘not flat’ and ‘mobile.' But we all have to suffer sometimes for our obsessions, right?
