First thing: if you haven't seen these guys and they come anywhere near you .. go! You won't be disappointed. If you don't know, their deal is they pick a random dead show and try to reproduce the feeling of it by playing the setlist originally performed. People had told me that they had the dead thing pretty much down pat, but the one thing that most dead tribute bands lack is accurate vocals. Not so here. As soon as the first lines of Touch were sang, my jaw dropped to the floor, and remained there for the duration. If/when I closed my eyes, I thought I was listening to a Dead show. But let's get this down in an orderly fashion: Got to the Recher Theatre about half hour before they came out on stage, and there was a good feeling in the air. Nice to see so many happy faces everywhere : ). The place used to be a movie theatre, the seats were taken out and there's two bars in the back. The stage is kinda small but large enough to accomodate two drumkits and a full keys section. I had guessed a show in 78 or so but the opener proved that it was to be an 80s or 90s show.... Touch: As I said before, the jerry vocals were nailed right on, the lead guitarist's stage presence is even much like an energetic jerry, with the big grin and the bobbing head and such. Lead guitar lines nailed right on, much much energy in the air and we're off... Stranger: First sampling of the Bobby Cheese Factor which also was nailed. Truly haunting how well the rythm player imitates bobby's shrieks and arm motions and general cheesiness. Gonna be a long long crazy crazy nite indeed... nice long jam which stopped on a dime and popped into> Franklin's Tower: soaring guitar solos, fast and bouncy, even a couple flubbed lyrics .. uhhh what year is this?? ...gotta be mid 80s at this point. Mingleweir: Towson phillies start lookin good .. nice raucous growling version, really starting to have my mind blown here. Complete w/ a Crappy Bobby Slide Solo ;) Row Jimmy: nice swaying song, I love the double time reprise at the end. Great jerrysolos, ...close your eyes and be whisked away to a place where the boundaries of time no longer exist and you are floating on the wind and smoke in the air around the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Stuck Inside of .... Love this song, again, very impressed with the bobby imitation and cheesein..Wwooooaaaahhhh mOOOooooommmmmaaaa ... more great jerry solos, powerful triumph at the end. Big RxR Blues: Was hopin for a bobby cowboy tune somewhere but we got a jerry one instead. Good rendition. Around n Around: this was Soooo loud and energetic. Love the Organ in this song, it hits me like a train. They skipped the little sped up outro that the dead used to do, but it was fun anyway. They got so into the closing vocals they probably forgot. I doubt there was anybody still in the entire room. The energy in the air was sick sick sick. Very surreal feeling as the set ended and we hear "we'll be back in just a little bit" .. again, what year is this?? Went outside and had an, uhm, smoke break and talked about possible set 2 gems .. maybe a playin or a terrapin? Twas not to be but we were thinkin sunshine daydream sandwich when they busted out w/ Sugar Mags: Another of my favs, can't say enough about how well done the vocals were all night, from all parties in the band. As the first section of the song ending, and it was supposed to go into the ssdd-like solo before the ssdd-proper, they hopped straight into Scarlet Begonias, but then, amazingly, seamlessly faded back and forth between Scarlet and SSDD! I would love to hear a tape of the actual show and see if the dead did it this way, but I've never heard any deadjam like it. Jaw dropped to the floor for the 23rd time this evening. Took their time with the segue and after a few minutes, they started up -> Scarlet Begonias: Great song, great mid-song solo, that solo sends chills up my spine. True to a dead show, the crowd-vocals were almost as loud as the band; ) FunFunFun. The outro jam spaced out instead of going into Fire, pretty long, probably five to ten minutes worth of spacey jamming and then hopped right into Estimated: Another favorite of mine, I was on cloud 9 at this point, dancin my ass off. Such a great feeling in the room, the whole crowd was Pumped. Truly uncanny how well the Worry Bout Me Not cheese vocals at the end were pulled off, complete with delay on the voice and the high pitched AAHHIIIIIIIIAAA shrieks. Smiles everywhere. Spaced out into some wahflowingoodness and I turned to jon and say "hopefully this slips into eyes" which indeed it did. Eyes: Great eyes soloing, another singalong for everyone. Quite a set this far, figured this would flow into Drumz, which it did, but not without a clear JAM out. I hate to say this, but I can't imagine the Original verision of this show could compete in terms of energy and preciseness. UnF*ckinBelievable. Segued into the one part of the night I was (mistakenly) worried about... Drumz->SPACE!!! Wow! Have no idea how they pulled this off, but it was complete with loud oscillating vacuum noises and the beast and general horror-movie-soundtrack-noises. Truly eerie and VERY LOUD and impressive. Wondering More and More what planet I'm on. I wonder if they take a bootleg of the show and try to approximate the space, or if they just try and do something common to the era. Hell, at somepoints I was postulating that they were all just faking it all and there was a tape playing. Very surreal feelings emanating through every cell in my body. "Jerry" comes out to save us w/ some digidelay scales and loud feedback noises, another 5-10 minutes of SpaceJamming, heard some Miracle teases but they faded away and in rolls... The Wheel: Scorching, right on, amazing.. Gimme Some Lovin: Even the keyboardist and Bassist voices were right on. Performed just like you know it. Love the organ on this song, it fills my soul :) Better watch out cuz this place is on fire!!! Crowd is a bunch of raving lunatics at this point. Watchtower: This was much more powerful than most dead versions I've heard. Scorching solos and solid backround noise, the roof was about to blow off.... Black Peter: Was hoping for a more powerhouse jerry ballad (mornin dew, stella blue, etc) but this is a good one anyway. Jerry vocals nailed to a t, phrasing, everything just perfect. Blasted off into the inevitable Sunshine Daydream: More Bobby Cheese and shrieking !! :) Loved it. Loud Loud Loud cheering and stomping and carrying on until they came back out for ... E: Box: The bassist had the phil "singing" down pat. Flubbed a line, but that just makes it all the more real ;) Afterwords they announced what show it was and said they had time for a little more and busted into a rousing Liberty: This always sends you out w/ a smile. OOOOooooh Freedom!!! Great end to an amazing night. I was wondering how long it would take to get home from Worcester as we carted our stunned selves back to the car. Sorry for going on so long, but these boys blew me away! Here's to 30 more years ;) Might hit the road w/ these guys at some point! jeremy