[Photos by Bill Antonucci]
True confession: I’ve never seen one of the various latter-day projects of any of the former members of the Grateful Dead. (I know, I know. I’m working my way up to it.) But I’ve also never seen a Dead cover band—that is until Friday night. California’s Grateful Shred made their East Coast debut last week with a show at Garcia’s at the Cap (appropriate) and two nights at Brooklyn Bowl. It occurs to me that fidelity to the spirit of the Dead exists not on the stage, but in the crowd, the lot, the makeshift Shakedown Streets that pop up surrounding these events. I’m not qualified to judge whether the Shred performed these songs perfectly, hit the notes right, whether they were too faithful to the material or not faithful enough (Deadheads have lots of opinions, man). But what I can speak to is the vibe they created: good times were had with plenty of dancing and new friends. On night two, a guy named Rudy approached me, noticing the mic stand and thanked me for taping. He gave me one of a bunch of homemade Grateful Shred shirts he had made to commemorate the shows. We talked about how the Shred do a great rendition of “The Music Never Stopped.” There’s pretty much nothing I could imagine that would be more in the spirit of the Dead. Go forth, enjoy the Shred—we’ll be back in a little bit with night two.
Downloads available at the Live Music Archive
Grateful Shred
2018-07-13
Brooklyn Bowl
Brooklyn, NY
Recorded and produced by Eric PH for nyctaper.com
MBHO KA200N/603A (FOB, ROC, PAS) > Naiant PFA >> Sound Devices MixPre-6 > WAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (balance, normalize, fades) + Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ) > Audacity 2.0.5 (tracking, tagging) > FLAC (24/48, level 8)
Tracks: [2:20:12]
Set 1
01. Crowd
02. China Cat Sunflower >
03. I Know You Rider
04. El Paso
05. Althea
06. Unbroken Chain >
07. The Music Never Stopped
Set 2
08. Crowd
09. Help on the Way >
10. Slipknot! >
11. Franklin’s Tower
12. Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
13. High Time
14. Estimated Prophet >
15. Drums/Space >
16. Eyes of the World
17. I’m a Hog for You
18. Sugar Magnolia
19. Encore Break
20. Casey Jones
Recent Comments