Review: Phil Lesh and Friends @ Harbor Lights

I broke a cardinal rule last week week—that is, starving yourself during show week—and fired up an ace bootleg from that 11/11 show to lift spirits on a slogging day. It’s rare that you return to a recording and find the show’s magic intact, with transitions, twists and turns exactly as you remember them. The slow-burn of that third set’s beginning—an achingly tender Peggy-O replete with Teresa Williams harmony vocals—,the wild flight through Cumberland Blues (one of this band’s best songs, and not surprising given the twangy country pedigrees); and a soaring I Know You Rider that concludes and then drops headlong into the churning Other One jam—I can hear the crowd jolt from that transition that I felt at the time—really stand out.

I gushed pretty ecstatically about these gigs at the time, so that was then. But now? I caught the first of my three planned 2008 PLF gigs this past weekend in Boston—and they absolutely fucking killed.

This Phil Lesh & Friends is a band of sinews and agility; it can’t match the firepower that the guitar tandem of Warren Haynes and Jimmy Herring afforded the Quintet, to date still (and probably always) the Phil & Friends measuring stick. No, the Jackie Greene/Larry Campbell dynamic is a finesse pitcher, and the band as a whole is fully in tune with its gifts, which are for the folk-country side of the Dead, the rootsier helpings, and the R&B. Once in a while I wish for more meat on the blues selections and a touch more psychedelia—this fivesome hasn’t yet gotten a handle on how to keep things interesting and not formless in sprawlers like Bird Song and Dark Star—but I’d rather have a PLF band that does most things great and some things passably than all things pretty O.K. And when this fivesome is locked in, and young Jackie is singing his heart out and Larry C. is manipulating strings and Molitz is spacing out a bit and Phil is bombing–it’s a special confluence of flavors.

[Photo by Rich Gastwirt via Phillesh.net]

And so, I tried to temper expectations, but it was hard: Saturday night in Boston led off with an hour of ridiculously fun Levon Helm and his all-star repertory band in the house, great even if the road version of his crew can only hint at the kind vibe of the Midnight Rambles. And then Phil decided to go for the jugular: a twisty, surprise-laden first set that kicked off with a rousing Bertha, moved ably into Dire Wolf and a totally left-field Me and My Uncle with a great, chunky arrangement, and wound up after several more highs (a dramatic Loser among them) with a terrific, freewheeling Lovelight.

Any fears that the second set wouldn’t measure up were totally diffused: it was a gooey, jammy monster whose tendrils extended into sweet charms (Eyes sandwiched between Here Comes Sunshine and The Wheel) and pensive heaviness (Unbroken Chain and then Wharf Rat). A looooong, melty jam out of Wharf Rat finally tucked into Help On the Way, which set up a Franklin’s blowout and then a curiously chosen standalone Rider and a soothing Attics of My Life in the encore.

So yeah, that tingle business—and magnified, for me, having had the chance to interview Larry Campbell a week earlier and hear him talk about how everyone in the band–including Phil, who had not long ago abandoned the idea of having a set PLF lineup–knows they have something special.

Godspeed to terrapin, Mr. Lesh, and I’ll see you at Jones Beach.