2010-11-21 Furthur at Madison Square Garden

I don’t see to many concerts, especially Grateful Dead legacy ones, but my brother Jay got me a ticket to Sunday night’s Furthur show at the Garden, so off I went. Bruce and I had an easy trip into the city, met Jay for dinner and a couple of beers, and into the Garden we went. Amazingly enough, we had seats in section 325, row D at the center court, that were Jay’s exact season ticket seats for the Rangers.

The city was tame and so was the Garden in that nothing was sold out or crowded. Things were in control and civilized. The Garden was half empty but it doesn’t matter, the band it there to play and make music, not to exhilarate the audience. Everything was working as it was supposed to in 2010. The band and the lights were right on and modern. The music has developed into a more sophisticated brand of music that ties together the worlds of the past and the future. Enough of an homage to classic Grateful Dead while providing enough freedom to explore new and future realms. At times they left us behind in their crazy style of music, but the band kept me as a fan in their rear-view mirror never running too away from me. Always letting catching up with the at the proverbial red light which is a new song, which are few and far between.

Below is the set list and a few notes on reach.

Set 1

Truckin’> Disappointed when they did it, vocally seemed meager but jam afterwards was great. Made me realized the bass/keys stuff going on could be really out there in a very in there type of way. Impressively and seamlessly switched keys from Truckin’ to Cumberland.
Cumberland Blues>
Any Road
Viola Lee Blues Surprisingly now as out there as one would think which made it hotter
Cassidy
Eyes of the World >
So Many Roads > Really well sung
Going Down The Road Feeling Bad

Set 2: Better than the first set

Born Cross-Eyed > It’s embarrassing I thought it was a new Bob song
The Wheel > Really well sung and powerful
Weather Report Prelude > Part 1 > Really well done
Time > Breathe (reprise) > Powerful and well sung
Let It Grow > This was really hot
Unbroken Chain >
Morning Dew > This was really well done, they did Jerry and the Garden proud.
Playin’ In The Band Thought they would have stopped at the Morning Dew this seemed like a nice added bonus
Donor Rap
E: Brokedown Palace – Sweetly sung by Bob and had a great lead, nice encore

It took some pictures during the show and they aren’t good but if you want to look at them, take a look. I haven’t figured out the concert photo thing yet but I am still trying. Another cool thing is that I was able to stream video during the show via U-Stream and I had 2 viewers including Scott Gibson, so I believe.