Grateful Dead

Bit of a tamer journey to Louisville to see Music of Cream, performed by Jack & Ginger's boys with Eric's nephew (attenuated) on lead. Extraordinary to experience such unique and seminal hard psychedelic blues played by those with a DNA-level affiliation; a heavy dose of improvisation proved a welcomed rebuttal to the notion of a mere cover act. What the trio did with "White Room" in the 'tween spaces was revelatory (who'd have thought!). A favourite moment, which underscored the group's aesthetic risk-taking (and perhaps only a Deadhead or jazz aficionado could distill great significance from such a thing), occurred during "I'm So Glad" when groupmind completely broke down: 4-5 minutes of utterly failed attempts to find some sort of freeform melodic construct (Will listening to Malcolm while looking pensively, lips pursed at the ornate ceiling and Malcolm listening headcocked to Will while staring holes with laser focus into the stage flooring) until Kofi declared 'enough' and pulled the crew back onto the page of written notation. And in the beautiful historic Brown Theatre! Worth the time and money.

Louisville is also home to a little-known artistic jewel in the Midwest: the Speed Art Museum located on the edge of U of L's lovely campus. Currently hosting a Modern Masterworks exhibit that comprises movements "from Picasso to Pollock"; really an extraordinary capsule of major artistic schools during the first half of the 20th century.

Finally, in years past I'd eaten at the pizza altar of Impellizeri's, though friends of a competing faction insisted that Wick's is the inarguable Alpha predator among River City pizzerias. So I went, and in the shabby-chic boho bar environs of Wick's, watched the busy midday traffic along Bardstown Road, deep in the magnificent Highlands, while a crazy patch of the season's first snow moved through. Good - no, really good - pizza, BUT certainly not Impellizeri's...sauce too thick, no fennel (or not enough), and clearly inferior crust. Have to admit, I brought 4 pieces home and it was better cold the next day.

Home, after 18 days, 9 shows & 5,552 miles. Another impressive statistic: I spent $190 on parking over a scant 66 hours in Nashville. But, Country Music Mecca was by far my favourite stop-over, with visits to the CMHOF, Cash Museum, Frist Art Museum, Centennial Park & the Parthenon, and 4.5 hours hopscotching dives along Music Row the afternoon before show#2 listening to dreams being played for dollars. Incidentally, that night, outdoors, in the 40s, under a fat moon with an entirely unwelcomed breeze off the river was warmed considerably by a stellar Gin and chunky, dance-y second set. Thank goodness security adapted efficient protocol after the first night - not just in Nville, but Allstate as well, where I began to think I might get into the arena on time for the next night's show. The lighting should be mentioned here, because it was my TN epiphany that the rig was behaving like some massive sentient octobot by expanding, contracting, smothering, or floating high above stage in what proved to be a show-within-a-show.

Best non-breakfast, non-pizza meal - Morton's/Nashville: short rib steak taco appetizer; filet, grilled shrimp, bacon-wrapped scallops & Lyonnaise tater entrée; and dessert w/ a Morton's legendary sundae....for a grand total of 16,000 calories and 22 pounds gained. At least that's what it felt like when they rolled me out the door.
Best pizza - Lou Malnati's Chicago Classic (peppi & ssg) @ River North
Best breakfast - no question: Loveless Café, Nashville. Must. Have. More. Biscuits. And 'homemade' preserves, country ham, fried eggs, and stomach searing red-eye gravy!

Monster driving days out to Vegas were mitigated by recollections of Rosemont highlights that validated the trip from TN, esp. night#1's funkfest with a truly revelatory 1st set Mercury>Moonage Daydream and absolutecriticalmusthear Tweezer>Golden Age>Frost in the 2nd set. Not to mention what shall prove even more profound memories of my first visit to the Chicago Art Institute. Halloween simply underscores the still-vibrant creativity and capricious intelligence characteristic of so much that I love about Phish. I wish the Dead had better managed health, personal relationships, and drug problems, as well as slavish obligation to touring, in way that didn't eventually diminished the exceptionalism of their music. From the Kasvot Voxt prank/lark/experiment on All Hallows Eve I distilled lot of energy, enthusiasm, and novel proggy interplay that I would love to see extrapolated in future performances - a great example is "We all come to outlive our brains". Vegas night#2 was my last, as I was both ready to get home and leave that city in particular (yet, a better overall show than night#1 - stellar Chalk Dust). I think you're either a Vegas person or you're not; I'm definitely not, and I'm going to own it from now on. I didn't even mention Hampton.