Reading: Atonement

Watching: Warren Haynes, Ratdog, and Phil Lesh

Moving: err

31 August 2002: Red Rocks

Warren Hayes (whose name I didn't know, but who plays guitar with the Allman Brothers) played "One," and though he sang it well, better than Bono has in years I'm sure, that was the most unforgettable indicator that indeed, this is a different generation. I cannot imagine a Dead crowd reacting so positively to a U2 song seven years ago.

In high school, the Deadhead (he might not have been singular, but that was my perception) returned to 12th grade after a few years at...Williams or wherever. I asked him once if the school had had a uniform, and he laughed and said yeah, tie-dye. That might have been the same time I had asked him about the Grateful Dead, because U2 was coming up rapidly behind the Police (and Sting) and the Moody Blues, soon to overtake them both as My Favorite Band (it was 1986). To me, all Dead songs sounded alike; he said he felt the same way about U2.

Oh.

I still think War is one of the best albums ever, but now I also think that about American Beauty. (Clearly, I am not a real Deadhead. Real Deadheads prefer live to studio. Real Deadheads' favorite albums are not so cliché.)

Warren Hayes also did a really good "Stella Blue."

I got to wear my Bear's Choice earrings, which I don't outside this context. I suppose I could to Sancho's Broken Arrow, a Dead bar in Denver. I bought them at the 1995 Philly show when the Dead resurrected "Unbroken Chain." A little silver dancing bear dangles at the end of a string of some polished quartz beads. I like them--particularly since I embellished one with a wee glow-in-the-dark star at Highgate a few months later and made them Bear's Sneetches--but the bears seize hair so when my braid falls behind my shoulder, a bear will come with it and yank my ear.

Ratdog came out, and cheeseball Bobby Weir (RDC has always called him a cheeseball) made RDC cringe and miss Jerry more. They mangled "Eyes of the World," which I had (and have still) never heard live (my favorite rendition of that is, of course, the live one with Branford Marsalis on Dead Set). They eased into "Cassidy," which I called, with RDC thinking it was "Jack Straw." I think Deadicated has affected him. (At the 1997 Furthur Festival at (ugh) Fiddler's Green, I called a "Scarlet~~>Fire" with RDC doubting they were going into "Fire on the Mountain" and me insisting. I was right, because sunset was gilding the mountains. I am very proud of that.)

After an interminable "Little Red Rooster" (speaking of cheeseball), Ratdog finally left. Phil Lesh & Friends came on, and they were much, much better. The feeling was there and what's more the music was there. A good show. "Help on the Way" in the first set, "Slipknot" and "Franklin's Tower" in the second set. And "St. Stephen" and "The Wheel."