Nomads
revel in Lesh fervor
ByAsher Price
Denver Post Staff Writer
Asher Price, Denver Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 09, 2001
Like the Bedouin of the Middle East, they travel in tight caravans back and forth across all terrain. They wear customary garb (hemp and tie-dye), eat traditional foods (like goo balls, a close cousin of the hash brownie), and sell indigenous goods (colorful glassware).
Unlike the Bedouin, however, they search not for fertile grazing lands but for lush music.
They found former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh performing just such music last Friday night at Red Rocks.
Phil Lesh and Friends (as his touring band is known) cycled through classic Grateful Dead hits and managed to keep the tunes from sounding stale. With refreshing and creative improvisation - especially during the evening's second set - the five-member band captivated the audience.
One gets the feeling that Deadheads need no help enjoying themselves. As the supreme guitar solos surfed along, as the pianist fingered his stringent chords, audience members writhed and whirled in a sort of solipsistic ecstasy. People had not danced with such fervor since biblical times. Some twisted their arms and hands serpentlike. Others bobbed in silent trance. At least one woman breast-fed her child while spinning like a dervish.
Despite the commotion among the audience and the suitably trippy lighting schemes that bathed the stage, the musicians onstage were unflappable. Pianist Ron Barraco contributed energetic progressions that powered the musical enterprise; he deftly shifted between soft jazz measures and harsh, almost discordant, rock rythyms.
Guitarists Jimmy Herring and Warren Haynes (formerly of the Allman Brothers) did a masterful job of trading solos throughout the evening. Sharp twangs sounded like exclamation points to excited conversations. John Molo looked slightly out of place: He sported neither shaggy hair nor a tie-dyed shirt. Nonetheless, his drumming meshed perfectly with Barraco's piano.
Finally, Lesh himself - who could do no wrong among such a partisan audience - held the band together with his imaginative bass lines.
Lesh and Friends certainly gave fans their money's worth: the band played for more than three hours, a length not at all unusual for the group.
While their first set featured fan favorite "The Wheel" and "Night of 1000 Stars" (written by Lesh specifically for his touring band), the band didn't seem entirely to gel until the second set. They helped themselves by opening with "Watchtower." It's a piece that's hard to get wrong, but Lesh and Friends were far from cautious: They bounded often from the song's structure into long passages of enthusiastic improvisation.
Other highlights included "Eyes of the World", "Terrapin Station", "Comes a Time" (with lovely vocals by Warren Haynes), and a robust closing rendition of "Not Fade Away."
The opening act - Les Claypool and his Frog Brigade - featured a showman as its lead singer and terrific bassist. Claypool played, slapped and picked a souped-up, exotic, distorted bass.
"We are here to make a racket," shouted Claypool. His band members obliged in fine fashion.
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