11/23/1999

It was the triumphant return of Larry Brent off of the incomparable Phil Tour, a little ragged, but he was right.  The problem was there was little to greet him at the door and the holiday season begins to take its toll on Deadstein attendance.  Only Larry, Scott, Dave, Jonathan and I were in the room.   Kevin did want to do the drive after taking the day off, like its that long, Trister didn't want to take the fly from Florida, it was pretty foggy, and Brotpen had video to produce.  It left Dave in his favorite position of donning his bass. 

Dave wasn't there for the first set so I played the bass for the Attics and the Don't Let Go and we took a quick Bens food break which was quick and surprisingly, pretty good.  This left of with much time to play many song in the second set.  There were moments though much of the music had lethargy spilled allover it but it was worth it.  The Morning Dew, up to the leads was very good, Wheel had its times of enchantment, we had a nice jam afterwards.  The Caravan was pretty good, Music was hot, well coordinated.  Cosmic Charlie, Dupress and Mason's Children were very weak and I don't even want to mention the What a Wonderful World.  The Lullaby danced like a Gypsy on hot coals.  The Slow Train Coming closer was pretty good.

I know we have avoided commenting on Jonathan's extraordinary dancing performances over the past several weeks and he has made us aware of that and put us on our toes that we need to pay attention to his antics.  With that in mind, my comments on Johnny's performance last night is that it was one of his better of the year.   It was the first time I ever really noticed what he does while we play and I offer him kudos for the fine performance last night.  Much better than those he has be raving about over the past few weeks.

Tonight was a very warm, foggy night in NYC.  It was so foggy that a helicopter crashed at MacArthur's airport.  Congratulations to Scott on the purchase of his new home, it sounds pretty cool and he's excited about it.  Maybe that's what gave Scott the little extra boost of energy that kept him going through an unprecedented 15 song second set.