2019/11/26 Joe Russo’s Almost Dead @ Brooklyn Bowl (benefit show for Headcount)
My favorite show is always the one I’m at. This one. The one happening now. Every show is better than the last one. But not as good as the next one. Because with every passing show, personal connections deepen and the human network expands, the intimacy between us expanding on an exponential curve. Every Althea, Terrapin, and Shakedown forge deeper and more meaningful bonds on the basis of shared experience and spent emotions. The JRAD community is all of this and more. Love and light personified, the band an equal partner, sharing these nights with show buddies who have become friends that have become family, well, that’s the good stuff.
The vibe on Monday night at the Brooklyn Bowl reflected all of this and more as excitement and anticipation were at a fever pitch and energy in the Bowl was palpable. I mean, who really thought we’d be back at the Bowl seeing JRAD again??!?!?! I dreamed it, we all did, but nobody knew it. So when this show was announced just two weeks in advance (fuuuuuuck… schedule conflict with parent/teacher conferences), I started scheming my stomach bug, which incidentally fell on exactly the morning of conferences, causing me to miss work but miraculously clearing just in time for me to get to the Bowl (or something like that). In Hebrew, we call that beshert, meaning destiny, in plain English we call it bullshit. So I channeled my inner Homer Simpson, aka Guy Incognito, and rocked a disguise for the ages: fake glasses, real moustache {Thank you, Mo-vember}, and a hat to protect me from anyone savvy enough to patrol the webcast for truant teachers.
Okay, showtime…
In their bid to “make democracy RAD again,” Joe Russo’s Almost Dead made their homecoming at the Brooklyn Bowl on Monday night, playing a benefit show for the ages to support Headcount, a nonprofit that registers voters. To support that effort, JRAD played a setlist voted on entirely by fans, playing the top selections from a list of 160 songs in which each voter chose their top five.
At 8:03:00, after a brief introduction of the benefit and the fan voting process, the band dropped promptly into “Althea,” my first favorite Jerry tune and the song I played on repeat off a crinkly assed hand-me down bootleg in 7th grade (1987) to memorize the words. Early solos from Marco and Scott, goosebumps right out of the gate, and then Tommy announcing his presence with some blistering guitar work driven by Joe and Dave’s rhythms. There’s always an MVP, a band member who just gets under my skin in the very best way and takes me for a ride, and on this night, Tom Hamilton Jr. took those honors. As I make this pronouncement, consider that: 1) I was standing literally arms distance from Tommy’s mic stand and within 8 linear feet of his amp, and; 2) Tommy must have been waaayy geeked about the fan-voted setlist that had him sing every song but the second set closer and it showed in everything he did. How could you not flex your muscles a bit when your number is called every time. So he did, and after an extended Jam out of Althea, Tommy (natch) was first into “The Eleven,” Joe close on his heels while beating the shit out of his kit. A hard turn into “Viola Lee Blues” that featured Marco’s mastery of the organ, with a jam so intense that I lost the ability to sing along at the end as I was literally sucking wind from dancing so hard. JRAD bested me with that Viola, no easy task, mind you, and left me sweat soaked and gasping for air. And the boys weren’t going to let me recover either as the last line of Viola, the emphatic “I’ve got a friend somewhere” bled immediately into “Franklin’s Tower,” so hard and fast and emphatic that my show notes actually read, “I’ve got a friend some-FRANKLINS!” The four winds had indeed blown us safely home.
While I have heard a litany of opinions on “Atlantic City” ranging from love it to hate it to did they jigger the votes to help it into the setlist, I love it and I thought last night was one of the best versions I’ve seen, YMMV. The whisper quiet moments were soft and soul stirring, the crowd dead silent to soak them up, and being right there to watch Tommy feel this song was pretty fucking awesome and just the type of subtlety I needed after the lunacy of Eleven > Viola > Franklin’s.
“Reuben & Cerise” is a welcome addition to any set and this one was no exception, especially with the emphatic segue into “Eyes of the World.” Metzger’s tone on Eyes was sultry as fuck and Dave took us on an old school bass ride as he soloed all over the place. And then, THEN!, the drop into arguably the baddest ass jam of JRAD’s life, “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” Democracy for the win — this song was everything JRAD was, is, and has become, the sum of their past, present, and future. Complete with false stops, telekinetic interplay between Joe!, Scott!, Tommy!, Dave!, and Marco!, and a WWE moment from Joe as he took a sip of water and spit it out a la Triple H, my in-the-moment show notes call this the best jam ever. Debatable, I know, but no reason to back down now. And I found it fitting that on Tommy’s MVP night, he was the one to take us out one more time, one more jam after the jam after the jam to put a final FUCK YEAH! on the set, 90 minutes of pure bliss.
“St. Stephen,” an obvious fan choice and a song that really highlights how JRAD tempers savage badassery with gorgeous stops and dead silence, opened the second set, I was reminded of a quote heard recently, “Music is the silence between the notes.” And in that silence, Joe took a big breath as the band took a giant pause before answering the question ”What would be the answer to the answer man? with “Scarlet Begonias.” The band seemed to be seeing what I saw in Tommy, a man on a mission, and continued to urge him on while the set unfolded: Marco flashing the pinky and forefinger rock sign, Joe slinging drum beats, Scott and Dave trading “what the fuck” glances from across the stage. Whether it was fans voting for Jerry tunes (probably) or Tommy himself (less likely but plausible), all that fan vote love was channeled into a TRH Jr. performance for the record books.
“Dark Star” followed (of course it did) but not before Tommy teased the false start with a “Wharf Rat” and a full-on “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” reprise, blending the second set with the epic mind fuck jam that closed the first. “Terrapin” segued out of Liz Reed, the full suite(!), a complete saga that rivaled Braveheart, every plot twist, climax, love scene, fight scene and denouement crammed into 37 minutes of musical gold. Joe’s first lyric on “Lady With a Fan,” (incidentally the first of the night not sung by TRH), arose like a spider web spun from the softest silk, building slowly, deliberately, its patience and wisdom on full display. So many moments during this saga, too many to recount, but a few that must be mentioned… Tommy and Marco playing what boiled down to a game of Simon Says with their respective instruments; Marco and Joe with a back and forth reminiscent of the duo; Joe yelling, “Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop!” before grabbing his cymbals and bringing the band to a full mid-jam halt only to continue again at warp speed seconds later. There are no boundaries of time or space as these five men play as one, exploring and reinventing the catalog that has literally shaped my life. They are Tight. As. Fuck. WOW.
The crowd reaction to “Shakedown Street” was truly reflective of the fan vote that got it into the setlist in the first place, with a fireworks display from {this is verbatim from my notes} METZGER!!!!!!! that quite literally had me jumping for joy. Scotty hit this tune as if to announce, “my song is next,” and it was, as he finally turned to Joe and Dave and said, “Is it really my turn now? It’s my fucking turn?” before playing the only song that simply could not be left unplayed on this night, the political warcry “Throwing Stones.” This song went deep enough to make me forget what they were playing, featured some TH Dark Star teases, and a full band spur of the moment “Another Brick in the Wall” jam that started quite innocently with Scott and Marco tossing zingers across the stage that Joe, Dave and Tommy picked up and, BAM!, just like that, a full-on, full band, mind-fuck moment of seriously crushing Pink Floyd jams. And one last time, just for good measure, I was completely sublimated by the guitar licks coming from Tommy’s amp {note: both verb definitions of sublimate apply: 1) to transform from solid to gas; and, 2) the act of being elevated to a high degree of spiritual excellence}. My show notes appropriately called this fiery set closer, “Throwing Bricks at the Wall.”
A few loving words from Peter Shapiro, including a political reminder to “treat tomorrow like these guys treated tonight,” the ever hopeful “we’re going to keep doing this,” and “these guys just make it faster, harder and better,” and, true to form, the band did just that with a jubilant “Jack Straw” encore.
I’ve taken to counting steps at concerts, a quantitative measure of my fun quotient, if you will. On this night, my Garmin Forerunner dutifully recorded 22,366 steps, roughly the equivalent of 12.17 miles for a 6”1” male at a moderate 4 mph. Knowing exactly what a 12 mile run feels like, I can affirm the accuracy of that report based on how I felt physically after the show.
The true power of democracy was on display at the Brooklyn Bowl, showcased by the band in its loving notes, and blanketing the crowd with the results of our loving votes. FWIW, I voted for Mission in the Rain, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, Morning Dew, New Speedway Boogie, and Cold Rain & Snow. Who knows, maybe this gives you, the reader, you some type of insight into my rock and roll soul.
https://archive.org/details/jrad2019-11-25.travitz.schoepsMK4v.flac16
Thank you, pC, for the #boxscore, and for validating a lot of what I thought I heard:
Show #212
Keep Democracy RAD, A Benefit for HeadCount
Brooklyn, NY
2019-11-25
SOLD OUT ~ THANK YOU
VIP Soundcheck (4:59PM – 5:20PM): Jam -> Brown Eyed Women -> New Minglewood Blues @, Touch Of Grey
Set One (8:02PM – 9:38PM): Althea > The Eleven > Viola Lee Blues # > Franklins Tower $, Atlantic City > Ruben & Cherise -> Eyes Of The World % > In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed ^
Set Two (10:06PM – 12:05AM): St Stephen > Scarlet Begonias -> Dark Star & -> In Memory of Elizabeth Reed Jam -> Lady With A Fan -> Terrapin Station * ->Terrapin -> Terrapin Transit -> At a Siding -> Terrapin Flyer -> Refrain > Shakedown Street, Throwing Stones -> Another Brick In the Wall Part 2 Jam + -> Throwing Stones Reprise
E: Jack Straw
@ – With a “Serpentine Fire” (Earth Wind & Fire) tease (MB) and a Throwing Stones Tease (TH & JR)
# – With a “Shotgun” (Junior Walker) Tease (MB) and a Loose Lucy Tease (SM)
$ – With a “Jessica” (The Allman Brothers Band) tease (MB)
% – With multiple Ruben & Cherise Teases (SM, TH x 2, MB), a DD Bass solo that included teases of “Whipping Post” (The Allman Brothers Band) and “Third Stone From The Sun” (Jimi Hendrix)
^ – Full Version, Not Played by Almost Dead since 2017-03-18 Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn, NY, a gap of 107 Shows, with an extended drum solo from JR
& – First Verse only, with a Wharf Rat Jam and teases (TH)
* – With multiple Ruben & Cherise Teases (TH x 2, MB)
+ – Instrumental, incomplete version of a Pink Floyd song, no lyrics were sung. First time played by Almost Dead.
