Diamond and the Dead: repost
Bill Moore
with BRUCE HORNSBY and FERRANTE & TEICHER
4/1/92 GREEK THEATRE
Set I: Set II:
Hell in a Bucket Holly Holy <-> Corina
Tennessee Jed Touch of Grey
Kentucky Woman* Brother Love's Travelling
Good Lovin'** Salvation Show->
Wake Up Little Susie** Estimated Prophet->
Bye, Bye Love** Cherry Jam->
Coming to America-> Drums->
U.S. Blues Red, Red Wine*->
Wharf Rat->
Sweet Caroline->
Sugar Magnolia
encore: Box of Rain
* Ferrante & Hornsby on accordions
** Neil Diamond assisted on lead vocals
Wherever else they may have been seen on the first day of April 1992,
the Grateful Dead definitely did appear at the Greek Theatre in Los
Angeles as well. Whisked by helicopter from their chartered Concorde
at LAX to the Greeks, the show started about 11:00 pm PST, adding to
the legend of these spring Stealth shows which began two or three years
ago when they shared a stage with Madonna.
We got to the venue several hours before the show, and found a number of
people in line who looked like they'd been "on tour" for the last couple
months. We sat down in the line, excited about sharing Dead stories,
rumors, and such, only to discover that these were actually L.A. homeless
people who had been hired by various Diamondbacks (Neil heads) to sit
in line for them. A few of them even had tickets, and had been instructed
to go in and save seats for people who wouldn't be getting off work until
right before the show started...
The people in line were friendly, though, and had some interesting stories
to tell... a few even follow Neil on tour like migrant farm workers,
sitting in line for local Diamondbacks and occasionally even getting
into the shows. They told us about the parking lot scene at Neil's
shows - "two cars to three spaces" seemed to be the rule, and they
cracked us up with stories of "Moondog the Microbus Guy" who had gone
to his first Neil show and had been outraged at the parking scene,
and the fact that the parking lot guards had made him fix the oil leak
in his bus so that it wouldn't spray on other parked cars.
Apparently, using duct tape to save whole aisles of parking places has
become something of a problem at Neil's shows, and he has had the unique
experience of losing partial venues. When he plays at the Oakland
Coliseum, for example, which normally seats 15,000, they can only sell
about 9000 tickets, simply because of the unavailability of parking spaces.
They also showed us a letter from Neil talking about the lack of phones
in venue parking lots and suggesting, "if you don't have a car phone,
don't come to the show!"
We entered the arena and headed down toward the stage. Most of the
seats near the front filled up quickly, but we found what appeared to
be some real killer seats about halfway back in the Phil zone. I
say "appeared to be" because... it wasn't until about halfway through
the first song that we realized we were sitting right in the middle of
the "beeper section." That's right. _Everybody_ around us was beeping
all night long, and by the start of "Good Lovin'" we had given up
entirely on trying to tape the show, between the pagers going off and
people screaming at their stockbrokers over the cellular phones being
passed around like joints... that's why there won't be a tape tree for
this one. Sorry...
The stage was... well, packed. From left to right, we had: Neil
Diamond's grand piano down front, with Ferrante and Teicher's twin
grand pianos on a riser behind Neil. Phil, Bobby and Jerry a little
more crowded together than usual in front of the drummers. Vince and
Bruce (the fourth grand piano) in their usual places at the right
side of the stage.
Bobby opened with a rocking "Hell in a Bucket," which got the Deadheads
on their feet, but really seemed to confuse Teicher, who left most of the
jamming to Ferrante. Jerry followed up with "Tennessee Jed," which led
naturally into Neil's first song of the night, "Kentucky Woman."
The next three songs were group efforts, with Neil helping out
on vocals on songs the Dead had covered in the past. A nice "Good Lovin'"
started us out, followed by the surprise return of "Wake Up Little Susie"
and "Bye, Bye Love." Each with entirely unrehearsed six-part harmony
(yes, Phil sang too!).
The set ended with Neil's "Coming to America" leading into "U.S. Blues."
The second set opened with what I have described in the set list as
"Holly Holy <-> Corina." The "<->" symbol is about the best way I
can describe the way this one went; both are essentially one-chord rock
and roll, so the band just got into a groove and Bobby and Neil traded
off singing verses, choruses, or whatever came to mind. The Diamondback
sitting next to me listed this as "Holy Corina" - based on what I could
see on his laptop display.
At the end of the song, Neil got up and walked over to Jerry and they
talked for a moment. Jerry walked up to the mic and said, "Neil just
told me that a lot of you want to hear the _hit_. We'll go ahead and
play it anyway..." The next song was "Touch of Grey" - technically,
anyway. It seemed like the band was doing everything in its power to
make it sound NOT like the recorded version.
Neil's "Brother Love" and Bobby's "Estimated" made a perfect pair.
We thought we were going to hear "Cherry Baby" but the vocals never came
in, so I've just listed it as a jam. "Drums" followed; however, with
four grand pianos on stage, there was no Space.
"Red, Red Wine" was a little bit of a surprise out of Drums, but
led perfectly into "Wharf Rat." "Sweet Caroline" and "Sugar Magnolia"
made another great combination of songs to close out the show.
Jerry apparently wanted to let Neil do the encore; he was drawing a
big diamond shape with his hands, trying to get everybody's attention.
Phil apparently misunderstood the sign, and we got "Box of Rain."
As I breakfasted the next morning on the remains of the kind vegi quiche
and ice cold chardonnay I had purchased the night before from a
Diamondback girl in the parking lot (actually, I think I recognized her
as one of the valet parking staff from earlier in the day), all I could
say was... "what a long, strange trip it's been!"
Happy April Fools' Day!
--
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Charles Wolff cha...@phx.mcd.mot.com
Design Verification Test Group Motorola Computer Group, Tempe AZ
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Ryan Shriver
>
> GRATEFUL DEAD with NEIL DIAMOND
> with BRUCE HORNSBY and FERRANTE & TEICHER
> 4/1/92 GREEK THEATRE
>
> Set I: Set II:
>
> Hell in a Bucket Holly Holy <-> Corina
> Tennessee Jed Touch of Grey
> Kentucky Woman* Brother Love's Travelling
> Good Lovin'** Salvation Show->
> Wake Up Little Susie** Estimated Prophet->
> Bye, Bye Love** Cherry Jam->
> Coming to America-> Drums->
> U.S. Blues Red, Red Wine*->
> Wharf Rat->
> Sweet Caroline->
> Sugar Magnolia
> encore: Box of Rain
>
> * Ferrante & Hornsby on accordions
> ** Neil Diamond assisted on lead vocals
This is obviously false, they never play U.S. Blues in the first set ;-)
Thanks for the fun reading.
ryan
--
Ryan Shriver Product Manager Digital Creations
ry...@digicool.com http://www.digicool.com/
Legion in the Way Band - http://www.digicool.com/ryan/jerry.html