Boulder, CO - Night 2 of Dead & Company

Kelly, Cassidy, Avery and I went to Pearl Street for lunch at our favorite sushi restaurant, Hapa.  Pearl Street was cranking with activity and Deadheads, as we ate on the patio overlooking the action.  After lunch, we returned to the bus to hang out for the afternoon with our friends and family.  Again, showtime seemed to creep up on us but we were ready this time to go to the proper gate.  As we arrived, there were numerous staff people checking tickets and directing us to go to the gate where we were shunned the evening before.  They were clearly trying to fix the debacle that last night was to get into the venue.  

The kids and their friends powered down up front as always, and Kelly and I returned back to the bleachers where we sat last night and had great seats.  The boys came out with authority and opened up with China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider, a thunderous Shakedown Street, Brown Eyed Women, Althea, Cassidy and One More Saturday Night.  They had definitely come to close this tour with a bang!  The song selection was great for us since we have a dog named Ryder and we got a Rider, and we also got a Cassidy!

Set two opened with Scarlet Begonias>Franklin's Tower>Fire on the Mountain>He's Gone>The Other One>Drums>Space>The Other One>Days Between, Sugar Magnolia.  They delivered a two-set encore again with a spacey Uncle John's Band and wrapped it up with Ripple.  During Fire on the Mountain, I couldn't help but think that it was an appreciative nod from the band to all the fire fighters that are fighting the various wildfires in the West, some of which we drove through in Northern California.  It was fun to hear The Other One, with the lyric "the bus came by and I got on, that's when it all began..." since that really hits home for us.  

 

After the show, we hung out until the wee hours in the parking lot, with various friends stopping by to hang out.  It was another successful ending to a great Boulder run and we look forward to doing it again next year...after some good, long rest!

This is Big Toe, and here is his kick-ass van.  You'll note that on one side, there are a couple of grates, which were incorporated into making a truck that Jerry is driving...pretty cool!

Boulder, CO - Night 1 of Dead & Company

Bright and early, at 6:30, I got up from my tentative slumber in the bus at the parking lot of the Isleta Amphitheatre, and we rambled back to the hotel.  I crawled into bed for a couple more hours of attempted sleep and then rallied the troops to make the 10-hour drive to Boulder.  Before we left, the hotel manager asked if I would pull the bus into the front porto cochere so she could get photos of Sugaree in front of her hotel.  It was my pleasure to do so.  The drive to Boulder was long, and we were passed by every Deadhead who had been in Albuquerque on their way to Boulder, most of them honking and flashing smiles and peace signs at us.  It was so sweet to come over that hill and see the Flat Iron Mountain Range and the town of Boulder.  It was definitely a homecoming for all of us, as Avery had recently moved home from Boulder and she was certainly happy to be back to see all of her friends.  We were as excited to see all of her friends, Dylan's friends and our friends old and new, as they pulled into town for the final two nights of the Dead & Company tour.  The Boulder shows are always special, as they wrap up the summer tour here and the town is pulsing with excitement and energy.

As we do every year, we stayed at The Millennium Hotel on 28th Street and Arapahoe.  The manager, Guisseppe, always takes good care of us and we park Sugaree in the far side of the lot under a big shade tree and next to the creek.  It's an ideal scenario, as we can walk to Folsom Field in about 10 minutes and we can hang in the bus during the day and after the shows.  It's way less hectic than Shakedown Street, but we can always go over there when/if we want.

The first evening, Kelly and I went out for pho for dinner, which was just what we needed...some good, delicious comfort food.  After dinner, we came back to the hotel and went to bed early, getting ready for the grand finale of the summer tour.  Morning came, and we ambled over to Rincon Argentinio, an Argentinian empanada restaurant which is wonderful.  That laid the groundwork for a great day hanging with friends at the bus and getting ready for the show.  The Boulder shows always start just a little earlier, 6:30, which really seems to make the day of the show go by very quickly.  Before we knew it, we were in line for the annual clusterfuck of waiting in line to get into the show.  Now, I love Boulder as much as the next hippie, but you would think they've never hosted an event at the stadium before, as hundreds of people wait in lines that go nowhere, only to be told that they are in the wrong line (even though the sign above says otherwise).  If there is anything that could be improved on this fantastic weekend, it is this terrible system of moving large numbers of people into the venue.  As a result of waiting over 40 minutes in the wrong line, and then having to go wait in another new line, we missed the first part of the opening song.  Kelly and I sat in the bleachers with plenty of room and no sweaty drunk kids dancing up against us like we experienced up front in our prior three shows.  The view and perspective from this point is really spectacular, with the Flat Irons rising up triumphantly behind Folsom Stadium and the sun setting in the background.

The first set was good, but not particularly great in my opinion.  After opening with an old Dixie Cups song, and Dead favorite,  Iko Iko, they played Cold Rain and Snow, Black Throated Wind, Bertha, Greatest Story Ever Told, a really sweet Comes a Time (sung by Oteil), then perhaps the most disjointed version of Lost Sailor I've ever heard.  This version should've been named Lost Players, because they all sounded like they were playing a different song.  I love these guys, but we'll chalk this one up as a Lost Song.  Like it usually does, Sailer went into Saint of Circumstance and then a barn-burning Deal completed the set.

After a nice long intermission, the band ambled out onto the stage and opened with what is usually a show closer, The Weight.  Bobby, John, Oteil and even Jeff took turns singing a verse, with Jeff singing Bob's usual verse of "Crazy Chester followed me..."  The crowd cheered enthusiastically to see and hear Jeff singing, which is a rare occurrence, as he usually just pounds it out on the keys.  By the way, like they did in Albuquerque, Oteil and Jeff switched places on stage again.  This is apparently Bobby's idea so he can feed off more of Oteil's energy.  After The Weight, the band wasted no time in going deep with Terrapin Station, St. Stephen (with William Tell Bridge)>The Eleven>Drums>Space then coming out of Space into All Along the Watchtower, Black Peter and Throwing Stones to end the set.  The boys came back out and delivered a rare two-song encore that made everyone proud to be American with Liberty and U.S. Blues.

All in all, it was a good show, but clearly was a momentum builder for the grand finale, which would follow the next evening.

Flagstaff to Albuquerque

After Las Vegas, we headed towards Albuquerque to see our next Dead & Co show.  The landscape is really nice along this route, as we see the high desert.  A few times, we saw wild horses grazing in the open plains, which was really cool.  We got as far as Flagstaff, and decided that would be a good place to stop for the night.  Kelly made, and paid for reservations at Woody's RV Park, but when we got there, the park manager was wearing full camouflage clothing.  He took one look at our bus, gave me the hairy eyeball and said that vehicles like ours weren't allowed in their RV park.  I suggested that he take a look at the inside and reconsider, but his prejudiced mind was made up about us colorful hippies and he sent us packing.  As we got ready to pull away, Kelly started taking photos of the front of his office like we were going to post a review on Yelp or something, and he came out and paced the length of the bus and got in his golf cart and said he'd go measure the spot we had rented.  Well, we knew the answer that was forthcoming, as he drove back and said that our bus just wasn't gonna fit in that space (that he previously rented to us).  Out of 40,000 miles and 40 states of wandering across this awesome country, we've only run into discrimination three times.  One other time was last July 4th in Hilton Head, and it was the same thing...they took one look at us and turned us away.  The other is at our favorite RV park in Austin, Shady Grove.  It's run by an old curmudgeon named Bob, who doesn't allow buses...no matter what.  We've stayed there twice, but it was always against his "better judgement" and last time he swore, "Never again!"  We made friends with many of the permanent residents, but because Curmudgeon Bob runs his little fiefdom, everybody is afraid to put in a good word for us as it might jeopardize their tiny plot of land in the heart of beautiful Austin. It is horrible to be discriminated against, for anything, and we all felt the feeling.

At this point, all the RV parks were full and we weren't able to find one.  We ended up getting a couple rooms at the Drury Inn, where the manager, Tony loved us and allowed us to park Sugaree right in the front porte cochere, a far cry from GI Joe just a few minutes earlier!  We all got a good night's rest and rolled out of town early the next morning for Albuquerque.  The drive there was beautiful, with the high desert and the mountains rolling along.  When we pulled into Albuquerque, we found a KOA campground, which had a pretty rough drive up neighborhood, but once we got there, it was nice.  This was our chance to relax a little and get our clothes washed and get ready to pick up Avery, who had been living in Thailand for about six weeks and had missed our family trip thus far.  The next day, we picked up Avery at the Albuquerque International Sunport and my brother Eric had reserved us a couple rooms at the Holiday Inn & Suites near the Isleta Amphitheatre.  On show day, Wednesday July 11th, we picked up Dylan's buddy William at the Sunport, and headed to run a couple of errands before we headed to the show.

We got to the lot around 10:30 in the morning, and it was quietly bustling with Shakedown Street and Deadheads pulling in.  We got a prime parking spot, right next to Shakedown, but soon, the parking goons were scratching their heads and deciding what to do.  Two guys came over, and one guy says, "you can't park there".  I told him I had paid for a premier parking spot, and he immediately says, "I'm sorry...I assumed that due to the color of your bus that you hadn't paid, which was wrong of me to assume".  I thanked him for recognizing his prejudices, and he radioed the boss to ask what to do.  The boss says, "NOPE...can't park a bus in one premier parking spot."  I tell them I'm happy to pay for another, and soon the boss drives up in his cart.  He loved Sugaree, and said we were fine to park where we were, and did we mind if he took some photos of the interior.  Of course, I said yes, and after about five minutes of checking out the bus, we were good to go!

My friend, Steve Malavolta, who lives in Albuquerque, met us in the lot before the show with his girlfriend, Kim.  It was great to see Steve, as we hadn't seen each other in a few years when he had stayed with us in Dallas for an art show he was in.  About a couple hours before the show, a big dust storm rolled in and filled the air with dust and debris, as the Shakedown vendors rushed to pull down their awnings and secure their stuff.  We were very happy to spend the dust storm in Sugaree, in comfort, though there were quite a few of us in there.  Jeanne and Brandon Rollins and David O'Daniel had come in from Dallas and spent the storm with us in the bus.  The storm ended up delaying the start of the show by an hour or so, and also had the band change their setup a little with Jeff Chimenti now on the left side of the stage and Oteil on the right.  Not sure why they did this, but it certainly worked.

The show opened with a mellow Mississippi Half Step Uptown Toodeloo, Crazy Fingers (with Oteil on vocals), a rare Dire Wolf, Big River, They Love Each Other, West LA Fadeaway, Music Never Stopped, and Easy Answers to end the first set.  The second set started with Here Comes Sunshine, Uncle John's Band, Looks Like Rain, Help on the Way>Slipknot>Franklin's Tower>Drums>Space>The Wheel>then into one of the most beautiful Hard Rain's Gonna Fall (how in the world does Bobby remember all those lyrics??) and ended the second set with a smokin' Good Lovin'.  The encore was a rocking Johnny B. Goode.  As Dylan was walking out of the show, Rockstar Richard gave him his sweaty bandana, signed by none other than Rockstar Richard himself.  Could our collective good fortune get any better?

The scene after the show was on the bizarre side, as it seemed to be a full moon kind of night.  Though overnight parking was not allowed, I talked to an officer and told him our headlights were out and asked if we could stay til morning.  He said that was fine.  I was grateful to not have to drive home with no headlights!