Double Bass Action: Phil Lesh Welcomes Phish Bassist Mike Gordon to Album Night at Terrapin Crossroads

Album Week continued last night at Phil Lesh’s Terrapin Crossroads venue in San Rafael, Calif. where the Grateful Dead / Furthur bassist and a bunch of his musical comrades spent the first set covering Gram Parsons’ Grievous Angel and the second set jamming on tunes from the Grateful Dead repertoire. During the second set, Lesh welcomed out Phish bassist Mike Gordon as a second bassist. Gordon had the night off from Phish tour which continues tonight at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.

[Photo by Benjy Eisen]

After covering Bob Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks on Wednesday night, Lesh and his band – which included sons Grahame and Brian as well as guitarist Mark Karan, multi-instrumentalist Ross James, keyboardist Conor O’Sullivan, drummer Scott Paden and vocalist Elliott Peck – went a more obscure route last night by tackling the Flying Burrito Brothers member’s second solo album from 1973.

Gordon emerged at the start of the second set and stuck around for the whole closing stanza. The set began with a bass duet between Lesh and Cactus and continued with The Wheel. Uncle John’s Band, Death Don’t Have No Mercy, I Know You Rider, Loser and Franklin’s Tower made up the rest of the set. Take a listen to Franklin’s Tower via this recording from Z-Man…

And here’s audio of the bass duel that started the second set…