Jam – 2010-06-21 – Carroll’s | my Steal Your Space book

Last night was as classic of a Deadstein night of Deadstein as one could expect in 2010 with Larry Brent filing in playing lead guitar and singing the Jerry stuff throughout the entire jam. We had played 3 or 4 songs with Larry about 2 months ago but this jam was our first entire jam with Larry for years. I was back to playing rhythm as Alan was out of town and we had Kevin, Rich and Scott to fill out the rest.

Besides Larry, we had lot of guests this week including Ken with 3 Dominos pies and Phil the vet. There was also Ken Levine and his two happy, go lucky friends from San Diego Fred and Jo. Last year on 6/17/2009 Fred was enjoying his 40th anniversary of his first Dead show with us and I guess he was enjoying his 41st again with Deadstein this year. The Fred and Jo experience may become an annual June event. Time wil tel with it. And of course we also had Scott Bayer banging the bongos by the end of the night.

This was also my annual birthday show with my birthday coming up on June 23 so I was able to select the songs of the night. This gave me the ability to keep the setlist moving and vibrant based on the energy levels in the room. I think having Larry as a newish or rehashed, however you want to view it, musician in the room gave us a little energy boost but I also wanted to keep the setlist filled with some standard beefy Grateful Dead titles.

It’s funny because I started with the slow the get going Deep Elem but then launched into the carving station with a Music Never Stopped. I think we had lot of good music. I made the mistake to be convinced to play the Picaso Moon but by the end of the song it was sounding good and tight and if we played it a second time, G-d help us all, it would have been pretty good.

We kind of ended a first set with the Terrapin and started the second set with the Samson. We were slowing down through the second set but we kept the momentum going with the beefiness of the songs including ending the night with the Jack Straw which we can play even while gasping for breath. Hey 20 songs with pizza in the room is pretty good. We never accomplished that in the old days.