the Forum presents Dead & Company
the Forum
3900 W Manchester Blvd, Inglewood, CA 90305 USA
7:00 PM, Saturday, December 28, 2019

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2019 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2019 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

Fun Run 2019 Tour Logo

[7:29 PM lights down, band out]

1. [7:30 PM] Viola Lee Blues » first verse » [7:32 PM] jam » [7:35 PM] second verse » jam » [7:40 PM] JM swap from Travis Bean guitar to ?tiger maple? >
2. [7:41 PM] Bertha (JM) >
3. [7:49 PM] Viola Lee Blues, jam > 7:52 PM Weir-wreck segue >
4. [7:53 PM] Jack Straw (BW/JM) slow, off-kilter.
   [Full stop at end. No flourish from JM. Silent strum from Weir; strange body language]
5. [8:05 PM] Big Boss Man (JM)
6. [8:12 PM] Friend of the Devil (BW)
7. [8:20 PM] West LA Fadeaway (BW)
8. [8:30 PM] Lost Sailor (BW) »
9. [8:38 PM] Saint of Circumstance (BW)
   [set ends 8:47 PM]

[9:31 PM lights down, band out]

1. [9:32 PM] Viola Lee Blues, third verse » jam »
2. [9:33 PM] China Cat Sunflower (BW) »
3. [9:40 PM] I Know You Rider > (another Weir-ed segue)
4. [9:52 PM] Dark Star (BW) » [10:00] PM first verse » jam » [10:04 PM] demented jam » [10:07 PM] second verse » abbreviated jam >
5. [10:09 PM] He's Gone (BW) » jam » [10:21PM] Bobby repeats the “nightfall of diamonds” line from Dark Star; front line off, BK off too!? »
6. [10:21 PM] Drumspace » [10:22 PM] +OB, BK » [10:26 PM] drop OB, then BK; MH bowing at the beam » [10:29 PM] drop MH; add front line, BW, then JM, then OB & JC » [10:30 PM] BK back on his throne » [10:32 PM] MH joining on the other side, grinning and starting to add fills » left turn transition led by Mayer
7. [10:34 PM] Althea (JM)
8. [10:44 PM] (Walk Me Out in the) Morning Dew (BW)
9. [10:54 PM] One More Saturday Night (BW)
   [set ends 10:59 PM; of for a minute or so]
    
   Encore
10. [11:02 PM] the Weight (BW/JM/OB/JC/BW)
    [show ends 11:10 PM; now and wave then all off, Bob last again]

setlist_photo

Dead & Company

• Oteil Burbridge: bass, vox;
• Jeff Chimenti: piano, Hammond B-3 organ, keyboards, harmony vox;
• Mickey Hart: drums, lead and harmony vox;
• Bill Kreutzmann: drums;
• John Mayer: guitar, vox;
• Bob Weir: guitar, acoustic guitar, vox.

Forum diptych

28th poster detail

5:30 PM sitting at the front of line, exactly like yesterday. Strangely, there are far fewer people hanging out today than yesterday. I guess they're all busy whooping it up somewhere else right now. Works ok for me!

7:18 just about time for the band to get on stage, eh? The crowd is pressing in closer and closer. We're about 3-4 heads back from stage, straight out from Chimenti… So slightly off center from last night, but closer.

First set starts off promising (yay! Viola Lee Blues!), But overall, I'm slightly dissatisfied at set break. Nothing is really bad, but odd choices, like the dirge-like pace of Jack Straw, accumulate to outweigh the positives. Ah well, sometimes it's a bumpy ride.

Second set resumes with the odd choices (Opening on the final verse of Viola, then crash-segueing into Bertha without any proper transition?), but I'm much happier with the song selection, and if the segues are grating, at least the jamming within the tunes is pretty interesting. The Chimenti-led “demented jam”, for example, offered a fresh take on Dark Star: not quite bitonal, but simultaneously logical and discordant. And from the reaction of Mayer and Oteil, rehearsed!

Sadly, Mayer seems to be adopting Weir's approach to segues, and the transition from space into Althea was laughably bad. Sort of a “slip on a banana peel” transition from shuffling down the street to lying flat on the ground and looking up at the sky. Knocked down, like a bowling pin…

I'll stop griping because I was glad to be there nonetheless.

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2019 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2019 event list! ☸ On to the next event!