runcible Posted March 19, 2012 Report Share Posted March 19, 2012 My first experience of DSO live and an absolutely brilliant night. Despite the heavy-handed security at this rather unpleasant venue - I haven't had to turn out my pockets and been body searched at a gig for a long time - everyone seemed to have a great time. Beaming smiles all round, lyrics sung wuth gusto by pretty much everyone, and a sublime set list.... Curiously from what I can see Me and My Uncle was ommitted for some reason - it was this set http://www.setlists.net/?show_id=0780. My only possibly criticism was the lack of more of Bob Weir's 'cowbow' songs - really only Mexcali Blues last night, but quite a version with incredible solos... I also missed Beat It On Down The Line, Big River and Truckin' but I was still smiling at the end. I was with an older brother who had seen the Dead on the Europe 72 tour in London and he loved last night which has to be a good sign. And for a 4 hour set to fly by in the way it did was remarkable - there wasn't a moment when I was even remotely bored. Plus the whole place was jumping and looking around to see Deadheads galore dancing, flipping out and singing along at the tops of their voices was just fantastric. Hope these guys will be back. Just fantastic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forum MVP Tea Posted March 19, 2012 Forum MVP Report Share Posted March 19, 2012 So they played 5/23/1972!?!? Of course it took them round about 4-hours....Holy Smokes. A much deserved interlude is in order after the Dam fireworks and what looks like an epic stop in The Square Mile. Safe travels back over the pond and then the West Coasters get their crack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
runcible Posted March 20, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 So they played 5/23/1972!?!? Of course it took them round about 4-hours....Holy Smokes. They certainly did, but I guess the running time was too long so they cut (eek!) 'Me & My Uncle'! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Band Member robbok3 Posted March 20, 2012 Band Member Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 Oops. We missed it. During the show, I remember thinking I listened to it earlier in the day, but I didn't see it on the setlist. It happens on occasion, especially in the shows with 30+ songs. Sometimes one falls through the cracks. Glad you enjoyed the show! Thanks for coming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GermanShepherd Posted March 20, 2012 Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 Despite the heavy-handed security at this rather unpleasant venue - I haven't had to turn out my pockets and been body searched at a gig for a long time - everyone seemed to have a great time. That's quite a difference from Jam in the Dam - no security, re-admission with no problem, open venue with sweet balcony and quiet & dark corners to retreat to when it got too intense on the dance floor. Did I mention the open smoking policy? Sounds like a great show - 4 hours, wow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
runcible Posted March 20, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 Well The Garage in London is now listed as one to avoid for me, and that's after 30+ years of gig going all over the place. If you could stay away from the security it was fine as the crowd were so friendly and everyone was having a glorious time. But a limit of 15 people at a time for the smoking area and everyone else being shouted at to 'get against that wall and wait your turn' was poor. This was a crowd of older hippes and Deadheads so probably the most relaxed and friendly that venue will see in a long time, yet they treated everyone like shit. Having said that the atmosphere was great as no one was going to let idiotic security ruin a wonderful night. Huge thanks to the band for a great show - you all looked like you were enjoying it! Despite my love for the Dead I am more active on the Spiritualized forum - only discovered DSO a few months ago - and on there I describe a hellish experience in Leeds at the hands of Leeds Metropolitan University and a Mark Lanegan gig which was so crowded I actually got frightened in the crush. Jam in the Dam was at the Melkweg, right? That is the best venue I have ever been to. Designed for comfort, sound and atmosphere - and it succeeds on all 3. The Garage is a horrible place with horrible people running it, simple as that. I hope DSO come back to the UK soon - please take a trip up north to Leeds and the best venue in the UK which is the Brudenell Social Club. Even when it's sold out it's not crowded and everyone is really friendly. Oh - and the SOUND is brilliant! That helps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forum MVP Rbarracoph Posted March 21, 2012 Forum MVP Report Share Posted March 21, 2012 Well The Garage in London is now listed as one to avoid for me, and that's after 30+ years of gig going all over the place. If you could stay away from the security it was fine as the crowd were so friendly and everyone was having a glorious time. But a limit of 15 people at a time for the smoking area and everyone else being shouted at to 'get against that wall and wait your turn' was poor. This was a crowd of older hippes and Deadheads so probably the most relaxed and friendly that venue will see in a long time, yet they treated everyone like shit. Having said that the atmosphere was great as no one was going to let idiotic security ruin a wonderful night. Huge thanks to the band for a great show - you all looked like you were enjoying it! Despite my love for the Dead I am more active on the Spiritualized forum - only discovered DSO a few months ago - and on there I describe a hellish experience in Leeds at the hands of Leeds Metropolitan University and a Mark Lanegan gig which was so crowded I actually got frightened in the crush. Jam in the Dam was at the Melkweg, right? That is the best venue I have ever been to. Designed for comfort, sound and atmosphere - and it succeeds on all 3. The Garage is a horrible place with horrible people running it, simple as that. I hope DSO come back to the UK soon - please take a trip up north to Leeds and the best venue in the UK which is the Brudenell Social Club. Even when it's sold out it's not crowded and everyone is really friendly. Oh - and the SOUND is brilliant! That helps! We had the a marvelous time playing for you blokes!! I think the promotor was very happy and we plan on coming back! We will look at other options in London and a few other cities. can't wait to do it all again!!!!!!! RB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deadheaduk Posted March 21, 2012 Report Share Posted March 21, 2012 Just wanted to add my thanks for a great night on Sunday. I wasn't at the original show as I was only 11 but I enjoyed your recreation (with or without Me & My Uncle - didn't notice actually!) I didn't have any problems with the venue but then I didn't go out for a smoke during the interval! I hope you do come back soon - like next July to play at the SoL party - I gave Rob K a flyer but just in case he lost it www.solparty.org.uk - a party for deadheads!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
runcible Posted March 21, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2012 Did the security not search you somewhat intimately on the way in? They did to me and everyone around us when we arrived. Couple of pictures from a special night... Rather struggling to get images to attach here - not quite as simple as the 'help' guide suggests! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forum MVP Tea Posted March 21, 2012 Forum MVP Report Share Posted March 21, 2012 Brilliant photos - ESPECIALLY that 1st one. Eaton sure looks like he's reaching critical mass! Thanks for these! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advisory Board Herdygerdy Posted March 22, 2012 Advisory Board Report Share Posted March 22, 2012 Welcome aboard UK Deadheads!!! I'm SO glad that you've got to experience our favorite band, Dark Star Orchestra! Thanks for going to the show, and thanks for coming to our forum! Maybe you can come across the pond and visit us here in the US... wherever you come to see a show, there will be plenty of us Starheads to welcome you, and more then likely give you a place to crash! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest L~Cat Posted March 22, 2012 Report Share Posted March 22, 2012 Welcome aboard UK Deadheads!!! I'm SO glad that you've got to experience our favorite band, Dark Star Orchestra! Thanks for going to the show, and thanks for coming to our forum! Maybe you can come across the pond and visit us here in the US... wherever you come to see a show, there will be plenty of us Starheads to welcome you, and more then likely give you a place to crash! yes, ditto! really fun to soak up the enthusiasm. Very happy for the band and for you folks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
runcible Posted March 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2012 Wow - what a friendly bunch the DSO fanbase is! Really refreshing to find these days! I would love to come to the US - I have close friends over there who is always asking me to visit. To see more DSO shows would be wonderful - I'm still amazed that the show I went to is their first UK appearance. I only discovered the band a few months ago via a friend in the US who assured me 'this is no karaoke', and he was right. I'm still a fledgling Deadhead having never really 'got' the music before, despite having actually seen a Dead show in 1990. I always loved the idea and the whole Haight-Ashbury scene as well as loads of their contemporaries. But their music didn't click - a few songs sounded good but... Then I stayed with my brother - who I went to the show with and who has been a Deadhead since the early 70s - about 3 years ago and he played American Beauty and bounced about the place, just so into the music. I still didn't really get it to be honest but saw there was something interesting and thoiught I'd explore. Bought American Beauty dirt cheap, but it still didn't sound that amazing to be honest, but better than the first time. I stuck with it as it sounded better with each play. By about the 6th time I was totally hooked and before I knew what was happening I was asking questions of various people in the know and buying more Dead albums from the same era. Then I discovered that the live thing was where it's at and my friend who recommeded me DSO started sending me these amazing Dead recordings from as early as 1966. I must have over 30 shows now - hardly a milestone for Dead fans I know - and I've worked out that in the last 18 months at least 50% of the music I played (and I play a lot of music) was Grateful Dead. To discover DSO was such a brilliant thing for me. The music I had recently become obsessed with was out there being played authentically to a point that goes beyond mere tribute. On Sunday night at the gig, at various points, what I was hearing was almost indistinguishable from the Dead themselves. The love for the music DSO have is obvious - you couldn't play it that well it was running through you. Plus the smiles spread across the faces of the band for a lot of the show was evidence of how enjoyable it was for them. We all said after that it must be so much fun to be in that band! Long may they continue - preferably with a few more UK dates out of London. We have a glorious venue in Leeds called The Brudenell Social Club which, even when full, isn't crowded. Nice people running it, very friendly crowd and the place is relaxed. We saw a show by Black Crowes guitarist Rich Robinson there a few weeks ago that was amazing. Great music to start with but his alloted 90 minute set stretched to well over 2 hours as Rich and the band were so into it and the crowd were so responsive. That is the sort of place I'd love to see DSO - they'd go down a storm. Firstly a Deadhead, now a Starhead. Thank you all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forum MVP Island Bro Posted March 22, 2012 Forum MVP Report Share Posted March 22, 2012 Right on Runcible ,,, Great story,,,glad you caught the DSO bug now,, Sounds like a trip to the US to catch 6 or 7 shows would do ya well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forum MVP Evangeline Posted March 22, 2012 Forum MVP Report Share Posted March 22, 2012 What a fantastic bunch the audience at the Garage was. The show was absolutely off the hook and in addition to experiencing the joy of the music, I got to meet so many nice folks at the show. Everyone was so very polite and also extremely enthusiastic. I felt completely akin to everyone there thanks to the music and how kind everyone was to me, a very loud American! One gent next to me who saw the original '72 shows in England said at one point that he thought that DSO might even be a little better than the Dead were. Holy cow!! What a lovely man he was. He was also gentlemanly enough to ask me if I was old enough to have ever seen the Grateful Dead! I told him he made my night!! Loved the show, loved London. We were fortunate enough to tour around for several days after the show and what a beautiful city it is! Can't wait for DSO to return!!! Thank you DSO and thank you Londoners!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcgriv Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Bloody marvelous! For more thoughts from a (until last week) a DSO virgin see blog (or go straight to gig review) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forum MVP Rbarracoph Posted March 25, 2012 Forum MVP Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Fantastic review, if I don't say so myself! Thanks RB Bloody marvelous! For more thoughts from a (until last week) a DSO virgin see blog (or go straight to gig review) “I can hear it beat out loud!” – Dark Star Orchestra 18/3/12, The Garage, London (2) Jeff Mattson, Rob Barraco For me The Garage is the perfect venue – a small enough so you know you’re in the same room as the band but big enough (capacity 600) to generate a good audience response. The bar’s at the back where it doesn’t interfere. You can choose to get close to the stage or stand back where the sound might be better. Plus there’s room to move without bothering anyone, or to just stand and watch. Make no mistake, DSO are the real deal. I don’t know if they have good nights and bad nights, but this was a stellar night by any standards. The first few numbers are played well, with commitment, passion and good individual playing – so far, so Cosmic Charlies (most of whom are in the audience). But when it comes to the really BIG jams (China>Rider, Playin’, Dark Star etc) the effect of having highly skilled full-time musicians who play together constantly puts this band utterly in the same league as the Grateful Dead. I’m talking about those exuberant jams that just fizz with energy, where each band member is contributing his own part – drums anchoring the flow, bass notes leaping about, little keyboard runs, inspired interjections from the second guitar, outrageously good lead guitar, and the notes coming from somewhere inside your head in response to all this. The kind of jams you want to hear over and over so you can pick out the different components. It’s like each instrument is ploughing its own furrow but in the same, GPS-precise, direction …albeit several feet off the ground. Like they are the loosest band ever and the tightest band ever at the same time. At one point I find myself biting my bottom lip – I feel guilty to be enjoying myself so much (my Protestant upbringing ...is this stuff really legal?) Lisa Mackey & Rob Eaton I look around and there are scores of people dancing (most gigs I go to there are about 3 of us!) and suddenly realise that everybody here is a Deadhead! Just to be in this crowd is a treat! I hear German and Dutch voices. A ‘Polish Deadheads’ flag is handed to Lisa on stage. A beautiful blond woman dancing next to me is from New York and says her daughter, also here but nearer the stage, has seen DSO over a hundred times. (She’s old enough to have a grown-up daughter?!) The band is clearly having a great time: plenty of smiles and lots of communication and an appreciation of the huge reception they are getting from the audience. The energy is flowing off the stage and looping back amplified. I’ve been privileged to hear several excellent guitarists play Grateful Dead material and Jeff Mattson is up there with the best. Outrageously talented, I don’t think he played a note that Jerry wouldn’t have, all night. Sheer sparkling beauty; I was repeatedly gasping at what I’d just heard. After nearly a 2-hour first set the band must be exhausted but they only take a 20 minute break. After Ramble on Rose there’s that gentle ecstatic intro to Dark Star followed by a monumental, frenzied, 10-minute pre-verse section with everyone throwing everything they’ve got into a rollercoaster of a jam at the end of which Andy turns to me and just mouths “Wow!”. The rest of the song doesn’t disappoint either; a lesson in exuberance and a treat in a night of treats (and the freeform section is mercifully short, too). Kevin Rosen, Rob Eaton Even without the jams this would be a special night. The vocals are of a very high standard throughout: these guys can sing as well as play! It’s great to hear a female voice as well. Everything is played and sung wholeheartedly and with passion. Even the best songs shine brighter when delivered live with real feeling. ‘Two Souls in Communion’, ‘Morning Dew’ and ‘Comes a Time’ in particular take on new meaning for me. During a soulful ‘Comes a Time’ I suddenly miss C (back home in Nottingham). We were together for all three of my Grateful Dead concerts (’72, ’75, ‘90): she should be here in my arms! But soon the tempo’s back up as the band go into Goin’ Down the Road and we’re boogyin’ away again. The Bo Diddley section inside Not Fade Away is a fun surprise, and as always, NFA is a humongous number to end the gig. A young couple who have been dancing to my left stop for a prolonged kiss, then it’s all over bar one of my favourites, Uncle John’s Band. As the audience disperses I’m struggling to think when I last had such a good time at a gig; then I have it: Wembley 31/10/90. The heart isn’t just beating out loud, it’s yelling from the rooftops and, if you saw DSO tonight, it's half-way to Jupiter! If they ever come back I shall be at every European gig. And if I ever get it together to cross the pond for a tour it will be DSO that I’ll be following. Thanks, guys, for your gift this evening. (Oh, and thanks to the beautiful blond from New York for your wonderful dancing.) Set List Set 1: Promised Land, Sugaree, Mr. Charlie, Black Throated Wind, Tennessee Jed, Next Time You See Me, Jack Straw, China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider, (they missed out Me And My Uncle), Chinatown Shuffle, Big Railroad Blues, Two Souls In Communion, Playing In The Band, Sittin' On Top Of The World, Rockin' Pneumonia & The Boogie Woogie Flu, Mexicali Blues, Good Lovin', Casey Jones Set 2: Ramble On Rose, Dark Star > Morning Dew, He's Gone, Sugar Magnolia, Comes A Time, Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad>Not Fade Away>Hey Bo Diddley>Not Fade Away. Encore: Uncle John's Band I’m pretty gutted to find that, presumably because 23/5/72 is an official release, not even the audience versions on The Internet Archive are available for streaming! Can it be found anywhere else? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forum MVP chuckvegas Posted March 25, 2012 Forum MVP Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 " I don’t know if they have good nights and bad nights..." In that sense, no, no they don't. They generally run the gamut from stellar to phenomenal. As does this review. The energy you convey with such enthusiasm and polish makes for a true joy to read. Thank you for sharing. The Archive issue you raise is a topic unto itself... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forum MVP bs69 Posted March 26, 2012 Forum MVP Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 "Like they are the loosest band ever and the tightest band ever at the same time" I have been searching for those words for 27 years, brilliant! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forum MVP gr8fulpair Posted March 26, 2012 Forum MVP Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 So glad our sisters and brothers over seas got 'em a good DSO fix. It's good to hear the perspectives of some veteran heads that are getting to experience DSO for the first time. Wonder if there are any good bands playing Dead music locally or nationally in Europe? Selfishly glad DSO is a US based band...with a helluva reach!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advisory Board Herdygerdy Posted March 28, 2012 Advisory Board Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 I see you've met Meg (the beautiful blonde from New York)... She's a fun person, and glad you got to meet her... NOW... get your butt over the pond and come tour with us! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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