oh kee pah

Furthur at the Utica Memorial Auditorium, Utica, NY on 2/20/10 performing Reuben and Cherise

Setlist is unconfirmed; via text

Set One: Last Tube, Shine, Cayman Review, Push on til the Day, Mozambique, Drifting, Night Speaks to a Woman, Tuesday, Sand, Joy@, Water in the Sky@, Bathtub Gin@, Sleep Again@, Farmhouse@, Waste@, Chalkdust Torture@

Set Two: Gotta Jibboo, Valentine, Money, Love and Change, Liquid Time, Alaska, Goodbye Head, Mr. Completely, Show of Life, Black Dog

Encore: First Tube

@ - solo acoustic

One of my favorite essays involving two of my favorite things written by David Gans

The following is the text of my famous Baseball Analogy as it appeared in The Official Book of the Deadheads (Grushkin-Bassett-Grushkin, Quill, 1983). It was modified somewhat from the text I submitted, and if I ever find the original I will replace this with that. -- D.G.


Grateful Dead concerts are like baseball games: no two are ever alike. The plays are always different, and there's always fresh hope. Sometimes the game's an all-timer even though individual performances are sloppy; sometimes everybody plays great but the team loses anyway.

Some people thrive on yesterday's moments, and aren't too keen on the way the game's played today. Some have only been fans since last year and don't care what happened way back when. You can cherish the great victories and triumphant seasons and chart them across decades, or you can go simply for the enjoyment of tonight and to hell with the standings. Like all the great teams, the Dead have their pennant years and bleak innings, perfect games and whippings, hits and foul balls, heroes and goats.

To many they're an institution, to some mere child's play, and to others the Grateful Dead is more or less an indispensable part of life. There are those who say the game's too slow, that the brief moments of action and excitement are too few and far between. Like "America's Favorite Pastime," the Dead are both celebrated and criticized, and some people will never see what's to enjoy.

Like big-league fans, Deadheads are as varied as the game is long. There are scorekeepers who record every detail for statistical analysis and a place in the Hall of Fame; camera buffs and video freaks; armchair umpires, die-hards, groupies. Some are bleacher bums who'd be in the stands no matter who was playing; and there are even spousal fans who go because if they didn't, they'd be left home alone. A lot of people attend because they've always gone and really don't care to stop.

It may take a few visits to grasp the subtleties, but if you let yourself into the flow of things, there's something to enjoy from the very first moment you're there. As the old saying goes, the mind believes what the mind believes: Grateful Dead is cerebral if you choose to analyze it, but it's basic and instinctive too. Like the game of baseball.

By REILLY CAPPS

Maybe.

Possibly.

Perhaps.

The concert will only happen if a series of rajahs and poo-bahs in Telluride’s nonprofit and governmental world agree to shoehorn another event into a tight summer schedule.

How likely is it? When talking about the possibility, officials tended to hedge.

Paul Machado is the head of the Jazz Festival, which already has the permit for Town Park those two days to do cleanup. After Jazz ends Aug. 8, it would have to tear down quick. “There are a lot of issues involved, logistically,” Machado said.

Said Telluride mayor Stu Fraser, whose town council would have final say on concert plans: “There’s a whole bunch of stuff that has to be accomplished.”

But forget officialdom. Phish fans vibrated with anticipation.

Said Annie Pletz, who stopped counting after 100 shows: “It is an addiction. I’ve been on it for 20 years.”

Said Dan Plummer, for whom a Telluride show is too good to be true: “There’s no friggin way it would ever happen.”

Even if you think Phish music is boring aimless stoner noodling without any end, you tend to want 9,000 extra people in your town buying energy crystals and Diet Cokes. Which means business people are looking forward to it. Peter McGinty co-owns Elevation Vacations, and said a handful of people have already reserved lodging for the rock show … a rock show which may never happen. “This is unusual, this type of situation,” McGinty said.

So what could keep the concert from happening?

Basically, the concern is that Phish might be too big for this small pond, and it might eat up Jazz Fest like a shark eats a guppy. The worry is that Phish fans would crowd out Jazz fans by buying up all the hotel rooms.