2/18/2014

The winter of 2014 has been a very difficult one for the entire east coast but Deadstein typically prevails and finds its way to jam no matter what. With a jam scheduled for Thursday, February 13 and a big 24-hour snow storm brewing for our area, this week's jam would prove to be very difficult to pull off. As a matter of fact, a few days earlier, I had slipped off my stoop and sprained my ankle and my abilities to make it to the jam in even good weather would have been questionable. The plus 12" of snow just prior to the Thursday jam pretty much decided the fate of Deadstein for the week, which was an extremely rare cancelation. This was some how good for me, because with the condition of my leg, I don't think I would have made the Feb. 13 jam.

With Deadstein canceled for a week, we were all ready to get back on our horse and attack a jam on the next available Tuesday, February 18. I was still recovering from my fall and hobbled into Deadstein, but lugging in and setting up the taping equipment was definitely out of the question, just standing up and playing would be hard enough.

I stood and played for the first set but I would pay for that in the days to come as the bottom of my foot really began to throb with the music and continued for the next several days. The combination of moving at work and jamming with Deadstein was a bit more than my injured foot should have bared. For the second set I was I little smarter and sat in a chair while I played, which happened to be very comfortable. Something to look forward to as I age.

Unfortunately, this ended a nice long streak of multi-track recording for us and we had to accept the recording from Rich's 2-track MP3 recorder as opposed to the multi-track recordings I had been producing. Not too big of a deal as we have lots of high quality material to look back upon.

The music at times felt very good including the opening Bertha. we followed with another couple of songs that began with "B" including the rarely performed Bight Side of the Road. This was not an evening with a typical first set/second set but was more of a melange. We had the first set Sailor Saint and a Peter to close the first set. The highlight of the second set was the big That's It For the Other One which was a good version for us. After that, we got through a Mission in the Rain, but the remainder of the night was not much to write home about.

Although, the night could have been better, it was still great to get out and jam, no matter how much pain I was in. I cannot wait to do it one more time. Until that time comes, Freak Out