4/30/2013

Everyone was back this week to partake in the freakiness and we were ready to rock. Well most of us were as it took Donna and her personal soundman, Bill, a few songs to get up and running. By the 5th song or so the room was sounding good and we were comfortable with what we were doing. Short of Bill, Steve and Lindsey were our only guests for the night.

The Feel Like a Stranger was a nice strong beefy beginning to the night and we kept the protein level high for most of night. You can tell Rich and Donna have been working together on the That's What Love Will Make You Do and the Jack Straw in the middle of the first set was a nice way to get back to the sirloin. Here Comes Sunshine China Rider was a nice closer even though we totally butchered the middle jam of the China Cat. The Rider was better than usual.

For the second set, Donna asked why we wait for her to leave to play the Beatles, so we started the second set with some. The Dear Prudence was a good transition from Jerry to John and Paul as I do consider Dear Prudence a Jerry Garcia Band song as opposed to the Beatles. The Eight Days a Week was really fun and the Oh Darling with Donna on lead was the highlight of that segment. With the Love Me Do we over stayed our Liverpool welcome. We headed back to San Francisco via Jamaica with a Harder They Come and Ripple to bid Bill and Donna a farewell.

We got in four pretty powerful songs afterwards to close the night. A proposed Black Muddy River was nixed as a closer as everyone agreed that it was a bummer, so we played the Music Never Stopped. Jamming the song really enforced the concept of not wanting the music to stop, but it was midnight and we had to pack up and wait to jam again. Freak out.