Hear Steve Kimock & Friends Honor Jerry Garcia In Washington D.C. On This Date In 2015

Steve Kimock & Friends performed a tribute concert for Jerry Garcia on this date in 2015. The March 11 concert at Gypsy Sally’s in Washington D.C. featured favorites from the Jerry Garcia Band repertoire as well as Jerry solo songs that became Grateful Dead classics.

The 2015 D.C. Steve Kimock & Friends lineup featured guitarists Steve Kimock and Lebo (Dan Lebowitz), keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, bassist Bobby Vega and drummer John Morgan Kimock as well as Jerry Garcia & Merl Saunders drummer Bill Vitt, who died in 2019.

The all-star cast kicked things off with rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Hank Ballard’s “Tore Up,” a JGB staple. In true Steve Kimock fashion, “Tore Up” is the only song of the show under 10 minutes. For the second slot, the group slowed things down a bit with another Jerry solo favorite, Bob Dylan’s “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” which saw the band stretching their legs before really taking things out on “Birdsong” which ran to nearly 26 minutes. A tight version of the Soul Survivors-popularized “Expressway To Your Heart” followed ahead of a nearly 20-minute take on Van Morrison’s “He Ain’t Give You None,” which Jerry included on his second studio album, Compliments. Steve Kimock and company closed out the first frame with a well-jammed “Sugaree.”

The second set got underway with the laid-back “Like A Road,” which featured characteristically excellent slide work from Steve Kimock. The band then delivered the first of two true Grateful Dead songs of the evening with “Bertha.” Next up, a nearly 30-minute segment of JJ Cale’s “After Midnight” which encompassed The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.” More phenomenal slide stylings came next on perhaps one of Kimock’s best Grateful Dead interpretations, his lap-steel-led instrumental version of “Stella Blue,” which always contains some goosebump moments. The band then built up “Deal” — a combo that saw Kimock and company completing the entire first side of Jerry’s 1972 solo debut, Garcia, save for “Loser” — to a rollicking conclusion to close out the second set. Steve Kimock & Friends kept up the energy for the encore with “Mystery Train” to bring the Jerry Garcia tribute show to a close.

Listen to Steve Kimock & Friends’ entire March 11, 2015 Jerry Garcia tribute concert below via Capt. Clipperson:

Setlist

Set One: Tore Up, It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry, Birdsong, Expressway To Your Heart, He Ain’t Give You None, Sugaree

Set Two: Like A Road, Bertha, After Midnight > Eleanor Rigby > After Midnight, Stella Blue, Deal

Encore: Mystery Train

[Originally published March 11, 2021]