Well Bottom Blues

Last night at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans for Billy and the Kids, with Molly Tuttle outsigning Donna Godchaux and a fine piano player and Billy Strings in his best late 70s-80s mature Garcia voice, I could close my eyes for a minute and imagine myself at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, GA in the summer of ’76, both shows.

That was almost 50 years ago.

I doubt I’ll hear this music played this well and loud and live and lit ever again, so the link in my mind between those shows ties a knot in a long cord. It may be a knot that makes my cord just that much shorter, but it is a knot well-tied.

I won’t try a review or make a set list. George Porter on bass on Sugaree was fantastic, and Molly signing on Bird Song anchored by a transdimensionalizing bridge jam was amazing. There was a Dead Flowers that would make Keith Richards weep. And Help On The Way/Slipknot is when the thought above was born.

Discussing the music and shows and Dead & Co. with some guys outside before the show, when I demurred on seeing D&C, one said, it doesn’t matter who’s playing it. The music will live forever. Listening to these 30 somethings (with the exception of course of the First Bill, Kreutzmann) play tonight, I believe it will.

The Kids are alright.