| New Years Eve and the Grateful Dead. Bill Graham flying in as Father Time. Elaborate parades and lightshows. These images conjure up past New Year's Eve celebrations which are part of the legend of the historic San Francisco music scene.
The Dead (no longer Grateful) pulled their road show into the hometown venue of Oakland Arena for a two night run, December 30 and 31, 2003. Though Jerry Garcia left this world in 1995, the remaining surviving original members, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bob Weir, and Bill Kreutzmann, reincarnated "The Dead" earlier this year with a Valentine Day show at the Warfield Theater in SF and the debut of a new singer, soulful Joan Osborne. Joan now covers many of the ballads formerly sung by Garcia with a decidedly feminine approach which usually brings down the house. Jimmy Herring was brought on to fill the lead guitar slot and two keyboard players, Jeff Chimenti and Rob Barraco (also members of Weir's Ratdog and Lesh's Quintet respectively), were added to the mix. Jazz saxophonist Greg Osby sat in with the band on both nights. Of course, the band plays lots of Grateful Dead material as well as some solo Weir and Lesh tunes, but the best music seems to be the older songs that have been resurrected and reinvented by this band: "Born Cross Eyed," "Dark Star," and "The Eleven" to name a few.
Enjoy these images of The Dead doing their thing on December 30th!
Joan Osborne |
Jimmy Herring |
Greg Osby |
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