reCAP :: Phil Lesh 76th Birthday Celebration with "The Q" :: 2016.03.17
Oh, what this band evokes: a truly heady time, a bit confused and a bit intense and a bit magical, where the current jam scene was officially becoming itself, the wounds of the Grateful Dead's end in 1995 were still fresh, and one Philip Chapman Lesh, not yet 60 (let alone 76), was committing to a lineup of his then-burgeoning Friends project that would be among the the most celebrated of all post-Dead bands.
Really, it couldn't have happened any other way back in 2000: Warren Haynes, reeling from the death of his brother-in-arms Allen Woody and deciding to experiment a little on his way to reviving the Mule and returning to the Allman Brothers Band; John Molo, a known quantity in Dead circles for his work with Bruce Hornsby, getting the keys to the bus; Jimmy Herring, years after his initial pop of renown in Aquarium Rescue Unit and years before joining Widespread Panic; and Rob Barraco, still then best known as a New York-area sideman and member of the Zen Tricksters, though already a tested and proven "Friend of Phil" and then, as now, a walking, talking encyclopedia of Dead.
It's one of only two lineups Phil committed to at length during the two decades he's been assembling Friends bands, and the only one that generated a repertoire that included original music, with a sturdy album release to boot. That the "Q," as this fivesome was affectionately dubbed all those years ago, continues to sporadically return is inevitably dosed with nostalgia -- but it's a good nostalgia, a healthy throwback, and really, a reminder that these guys, playing together in this fashion, were something extra special.
Thursday night's first of two Q performances during this Phil birthday week was only the second Q reunion show in the New York area over the past decade, following a vibe-heavy, but also somewhat muddled one-off in Forest Hills in September 2014. This time there was no muddle: the boyos yoked the full strength of the Cap and dove in, mixing in to a three-and-a-half-hour show plenty of PLQ staples and some stray surprises, such as a dire take on Ryan Adams' "Let It Ride," that were decidedly not staples of their heyday. They sure sounded like the Q -- the show began with a Q signature, a winding, where-are-they-going-with-this jam -- and kept things lively: the interplay between Haynes and Herring, Barraco's deft touch and canny timing (and permanently plastered grin), and the decades-nurtured pocket -- the trust to keep time and do interesting things with it -- between Lesh and Molo.
Was there a theme? Perhaps, given all the songs about time and memories and and far-off places and the uncertainty of things ("Spots of Time" closed set one, "Days Between" was the lone encore). There was a style, too -- this was a decidedly psychedelic 60s, Aoxomoxoa-style show, with long asides into "China Cat Sunflower" (sans "Rider" rejoinder), "Cosmic Charlie," "St. Stephen" and, in the night's most complex and thrilling passage of music, a long, long climb through "Mountains of the Moon" that paused for the PLQ original "Night of 1,000 Stars," and then returned, unexpectedly to "Mountains," before a descent into churning ocean with "The Other One" and emergence with "Cryptical Envelopment."
The band seemed conscious of its audience's expectations. There were rockers, including "Passenger" and a rich "Mason's Children," the lost 60s Dead nugget that became another of the Q's signature songs. There were parenthetical asides to other corners of the Dead legacy and that of the Allmans and other bands represented in spirit on stage, including the brief excursion into "Mountain Jam." But this band was always best toiling in the colorful ether, and that was what we were reminded of. Their spacier transitions rarely lag or sputter because as players, Haynes, Barraco and Herring are all movers, easily bored and, without rushing things, insisting that jams move forward and resolve into something -- all while leaving open the possibility that they should simply conclude, as in the "China Cat" that threw a million hints before simply smiling, and stopping.
Spots of time, indeed.
Phil Lesh Quintet 3/17/2016
Set 1: Jam > Dear Mr. Fantasy > China Cat Sunflower, Let It Ride, Passenger, Cosmic Charlie, Cassidy, Spots of Time
Set 2: Mason's Children > Mountain Jam > Mountains of the Moon > Night of 1000 Stars > Mountains of the Moon > The Other One > Cryptical Envelopment, St. Stephen > In the Midnight Hour
Encore: Days Between