Let Your Love Light Shine!

The five night love fest at the San Francisco Fillmore, which were also the last shows of the "Euphoria or Bust" tour with The Black Crowes, ended Saturday night, December 20, with a sold-out crowd helping lead singer Chris Robinson celebrate his 42nd birthday. Many fans down in front tried singing Happy Birthday when the band took the stage at 9:30, but they were quickly drowned out by the opener, Feelin' Alright (the Dave Mason-penned song for Traffic but made more famous by Joe Cocker). The Crowes have not played the song live since 1997, and the fans roared their collective approval. (My husband and I had been tipped off by a Fillmore employee before the show started, who told us the band played Feelin' Alright at the sound check.)

Luther Dickinson showcased a blazing lead guitar solo on the High Head Blues jam. I had called Space Captain, a cover originally found on Mad Dogs and Englishmen with Joe Cocker and Leon Russell (a favorite of mine when I was in high school). Keyboard player Adam MacDougall got to shine with a solo on electric piano on Descending.

After the rollicking barrelhouse honky tonk of Downtown Money Waster, the ensuing jam soon gave way to the familiar Bo Diddley beat, and we were treated to Diddley's song Mona, but the Crowes performed the more psychedelic version associated with 1960s San Francisco band Quicksilver Messenger Service. Polly was another highlight of the night (found on Sweetheart of the Rodeo by the Byrds, and recently recorded by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss), featuring soulful vocal harmonies by brothers Chris and Rich Robinson. Rarely played Feathers kept with the "wings" theme, and at the opening chords of Remedy, the Fillmore contained enough rockin' energy to launch a freak-powered space ship.

As the band took their bows after playing for a solid two hours, Chris playfully elbowed his younger brother Rich while the entire band soaked up the love. My husband and I had been tipped off by another Fillmore employee before the show that Phil Lesh was at the Fillmore with his custom bass, so we knew he would join the Crowes for the encore (we even called two of the three encore songs).

Bay Area native Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead, introduced by Chris as "the Governor of California", joined the band for classic Dead tunes Sugaree, Cold Rain and Snow, and New Speedway Boogie (which was written about the debacle at Altamont in 1969). Bassist Sven Pipien switched to acoustic guitar during the three song encore (hidden behind Chris in the photo above). Just four years ago at this time, we saw Phil Lesh & Friends for three nights at the Warfield in San Francisco, featuring Chris Robinson on lead vocals.

After almost three hours (170 minutes) of screaming guitars and thundering drums, the show was finally over. Rich threw a handful of guitar picks out to the crowd. Earlier, after a harmonica solo, Chris gave the harmonica to a fan down in front. After the band left the stage, roadies gave out tambourines, harmonicas, drum sticks, and set lists to a lucky few.

Setlist, Saturday, December 20, 2008 (thank you, CrowesBase!):

Feelin' Alright

Stare It Cold

High Head Blues -> Jam

Space Captain

Seeing Things

Young Man, Old Man

Let Me Share The Ride

Descending

Downtown Money Waster -> Jam ->

Mona ->

Take Off From The Future ->

Thorn In My Pride

Polly

Oh Josephine

Feathers

Movin' On Down The Line

Remedy

- encore -

Sugaree

Cold Rain And Snow

New Speedway Boogie

Set Your Mind To Fly

Man, it's been about an hour and a half since the Friday night Black Crowes Fillmore show ended, and my ears are still ringing. Another smokin' excellent show. I am running out of superlatives, and I have yet another show tomorrow night. Wow. I don't want it to end.

Highlights: Two songs my husband Joe and I really wanted to hear; Horsehead and Can't You Hear Me Knockin'. I love the Stones, but the Crowes totally kick ass over the original. Rarities Bewildered (not played live since 1993) and Title Song were treats. The Hard to Handle jam was superb.

Comin' Home, another cover from Bonnie & Delaney and Friends with Eric Clapton....Chris singing the refrain from the Beatles' I Am The Walrus ("smoke pot, smoke pot, everybody smoke pot") out of the Wounded Bird jam, which featured a blazing guitar solo by Luther Dickinson. During God's Got It, drummer Steve Gorman pounded a bass drum with the image of lame duck President Bush's face on the side of it, complete with black eye, bruised forehead, and missing teeth. I was highly amused.

Two hours of rock & roll bliss, and we have one more night to go. I was given a card to fill out for Chris's birthday tomorrow. A couple of gals will collect them to give to Chris, and we are all going to sing Happy Birthday to him. We'll see how that goes on Saturday night.

Setlist, Friday, December 19, 2008 (thanks to CrowesBase):

Cursed Diamond
Horsehead
Goodbye Daughters Of The Revolution
Hotel Illness
Comin' Home
Under A Mountain Jam ->
Bring On, Bring On
Girl From A Pawnshop
Girl From The North Country
Good Friday
Title Song
Bewildered
Soul Singing
Hard To Handle -> Jam
Wounded Bird
- encore -
God's Got It
Can't You Hear Me Knocking

If You Feel Like A Riot, Don't You Deny It

The Fillmore, San Francisco, Thursday evening, December 18, 2008. Another fan-fucking-tastic night of high energy freak & roll music from The Black Crowes. What a delight to hear Exit open the show; according to CrowesBase, they haven't played the song live since 8/25/95. The night's setlist was another nicely crafted mix of old, rare, new, and cover tunes, running from about 8:35 until about 10:40 p.m.

My favorite covers of the night were Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (Gram Parsons' version), Lowell George's Willin', and Poor Elijah (Eric Clapton with Bonnie & Delaney and Friends). Thursday night had a bit of a country flavor, and both Rich and Sven wore Nudie's style embellished western shirts, which helped set the mood.

12/18/08 setlist, courtesy of CrowesBase.com:

Exit
No Speak No Slave
Cypress Tree
Evil Eye
Walk Believer Walk
Nonfiction -> Jam
Peace Anyway ->
Wiser Time
There's Gold In Them Hills
Wyoming And Me
Do Right Woman, Do Right Man
Another Roadside Tragedy
Sting Me
My Morning Song
Jealous Again
- encore -
Willin'
Poor Elijah - Tribute To Johnson (Medley)


Chris Robinson played acoustic guitar on Do Right Woman, Do Right Man.

Black Crowes Fillmore Concert Poster

Just as I thought, some of the free posters are already listed for sale on eBay. This graphic design by artist Alan Forbes evokes the psychedelic concert poster heyday of the late 1960s.

I think we will frame this one and add it to our purple Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (the hallway in our home). Tonight is show number three in the series. Hope the band had a good rest yesterday!

Let It All Ride!

Tuesday, December 16 was the second night of The Black Crowes San Francisco Fillmore run. And a very cold night it was, waiting outside in line behind the flagpole next to the post office, behind the Fillmore Auditorium. Those who were not prepared with winter clothing and accessories were in a world of hurt.

But the sacrifice was well worth it. Highlights of Tuesday's show for me were an inspired Gone; a soulful P. 25 London; and Dirty Hair Halo from the Tall/Amorica sessions, which was not played live until recent years.

Drummer Steve Gorman came down to stage front playing a silver djembe on Whoa Mule. It was nice to hear Wheels, the Gram Parsons/Chris Hillman song that The Flying Burrito Brothers recorded. Wee Who See The Deep segued into a Grateful Dead-inspired space jam into a drum solo, and more jamming into Thorn In My Pride. I love watching Chris Robinson do his bouncy hippie-rocker strut.

The Crowes dug deep into their early catalog for hits Twice As Hard, Sister Luck, Remedy, and Shake Your Money Maker, which were big crowd pleasers. The last song of the encore was Let's Go Get Stoned, which was probably the after show activity of choice of many of those in attendance. This lineup of the band is in fine form, and the Tuesday night crowd was very receptive and enthusiastic, not to mention slightly drunk. (The free posters given out after the shows feature some appropriately psychedelic artwork...nice.)

Setlist, Tuesday, December 16, 2008, courtesy of The CrowesBase:

Wounded Bird
Gone
Twice As Hard
Thick N' Thin
P.25 London
Evergreen
Dirty Hair Halo
Sister Luck
Whoa Mule
Losing My Mind
Wheels
Wee Who See The Deep ->
Take Off From The Future ->
Spider In The Sugar Bowl Blues Tease ->
Thorn In My Pride
Oh Josephine
Remedy
- encore -
Shake Your Money Maker
Sometimes Salvation
Let's Go Get Stoned

Startin' To Feel The Shine!

Last night The Black Crowes opened their five night run at the historic Fillmore in San Francisco with the raucous high energy expected from one of the few American bands who is keeping the soul of psychedelic blues-based rock & roll music alive and kickin'. It was a Monday night, but you would never know it from the enthusiastic jamming that highlighted much of the set list.

The band played one long set, from about 8:30 to 10:30 p.m., and they did not have an opening band. They opened with Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution, into a bluesy jam before Black Moon Creeping.

Then we were taken down to the Greasy Grass River, on our way to Chevrolet, with another tasty jam. (I think Chris played harmonica on that one, but I didn't take notes, as I was too busy enjoying the show.) Rarely played Paint An 8 was next, followed by Walk Believer Walk; Chris introduced it by saying there was some controversy over remarks he made about the song, saying that when the spaceship comes to take us beyond the sun, the longhaired folks should go first. (Okay, I guess you had to be there.)

Chris played both electric and acoustic guitar much more than I've seen previously, and both Rich and Luther had opportunity to play slide guitar. On the classic blues tune Forty-Four Blues, Rich sang into a device on the side of his microphone which distorted his voice so it sounded like a vintage recording being played on a Victrola record player. This led into another spacey jam, and the energy in the Fillmore continued to amp up. We were brought back down to earth with Locust Street and How Much For Your Wings, before Waiting Guilty got us moving again.

The remainder of the set included She Gave Good Sunflower, Movin' On Down the Line, By Your Side, (Only) Halfway to Everywhere, and Wounded Bird. After just a few minutes offstage, the band returned with an encore of She Talks To Angels and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. This particular show was truly stellar; the Crowes mixed up it real good into that delicious rock & roll stew that I crave....older stuff, new stuff, stuff they rarely play, and steaming hot covers.

We had been jonesing for live Black Crowes since the fall shows we had tickets for were cancelled (Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Las Vegas). They did not disappoint. Luckily, we have tickets for all five nights at the Fillmore. I chatted with a couple near us who said it was their first Crowes show. By the end of the night, I was told, "Now I see what the deal is. I'm a convert!" I'm looking forward to tonight's show, wondering what treats are in store. After the band takes a break on Wednesday, they are playing Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night....which is Chris Robinson's 42nd birthday.

Going Down To Yasgur's Farm

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in October, I drove the hour and a half from Poughkeepsie to Bethel, New York. I knew that the new Woodstock museum had just opened in June of this year, and I figured that I was so close, I might as well see it. I grew up in New Jersey, and my family moved to southern California in June of 1969, two months before the legendary Woodstock concert. I would have been a little too young to go, but not too long after Woodstock I did see Santana and Jimi Hendrix when they came to Ventura. (And through the years since, I've seen and met some of the other Woodstock performers.) The decade of the '60s and the first half of the '70s had a profound influence on my personal development and my world view, which continues to this day, and probably will until the day I die. The music of the Woodstock era is still my favorite, and I felt compelled to make my pilgrimage to this place, which for many of my generation, is like sacred ground.

Photography is not allowed inside the museum, so I had to settle for outdoor shots. For a virtual tour, go to their web site for the i-tour. I absolutely adored the museum. It's about the decade of the 1960s in America, and how we evolved from the post-war era of the 1950s. All of the changes are documented: politically, socially, culturally, and of course, musically. It's dynamic, it's interactive, and extremely well put together. As you wind your way through, you can view many different historic videos, chronicling our cultural (r)evolution. This explains it well.


Most of the folks visiting that day were baby boomers like me, and I actually met a man who had been at the festival in 1969. There is a psychedelic bus that you can sit in and watch a video about the Merry Pranksters' bus Furthur and other busses of the era. The history of how the Woodstock festival came to be is also presented in depth, complete with documents and artifacts, including Wavy Gravy's jumpsuit. (No, I didn't see any brown acid.) In the domed center of the museum, you can flop down on large bean bag chairs or sit on benches to watch a multimedia surround-sound presentation on several huge screens, showing what the Woodstock experience was like. (When it rains on film, you experience lightning flashes and the sound of rain around you.) They have booths available where you can record your memories of Woodstock, or how the '60s affected you. The last section of the museum features musicians talking on video about the legacy of the music of the Woodstock era, including Warren Haynes. (There's even a Woodstock-related clip from the animated series South Park.)


As you exit, you enter the gift shop, which is filled with books, CDs, DVDs, t-shirts, and the usual memorabilia. I spent about three hours at the museum, and left just before closing. I took my time, relishing every single video and artifact. Amazing how all of that was accomplished without cell phones and computers! As I drove back, I imagined how the roads were clogged with cars 39 years ago, and how all of those hopeful, idealistic young people endured inconveniences for three days just to grasp a little magic. Next year will be the 40th anniversary. I'll be watching for the special events. Who knows, I might go back!

I couldn't help but feel nostalgic standing there.

The site of the 1969 festival. That's the Center in the background, to the right.

Where it all happened. The stage was to the far left, in the natural bowl.