Black-and-white Bobby. Images by Sophie Haigney.
Let’s begin with the darkish stuff. On Saturday night time in San Francisco, after the second-to-last-ever Useless & Co. present, each single ATM close to the ballpark was apparently out of money, as a result of folks couldn’t cease shopping for balloons stuffed with nitrous oxide, huffing them on the road for only a few extra seconds of feeling excessive. The bars close by had been overrun, fairly actually, lengthy after everybody ought to have been at house. Folks go down at exhibits—it occurred proper in entrance of us one night time, the medics speeding in and carrying somebody out. There are, not sometimes, overdoses. There’s an excessive amount of of all the pieces, typically. “I’m at that time in a bender the place beer isn’t actually doing something for me anymore,” I heard somebody joke on day three of the three-show run.
It’s not that straightforward to drink your self to loss of life, truly, which I do know as a result of I’ve watched lots of people attempt, however I might think about it occurring to many individuals within the context of the lengthy slide of years or many years spent following the band. I all the time assume “There however for the grace of God go I,” and I actually imply it. So many individuals are lifeless and gone, amongst them the Useless’s lead songwriter, guitarist, and singer Jerry Garcia, who was killed by his personal dependancy to heroin on the age of fifty-three. “Do you consider Jerry as a prophet or a saint?” my good friend requested me on Sunday as we bought prepared for the final present ever. The temper was elegiac, although the actual fact of finality wasn’t actually sinking in, which could be why we stored repeating it time and again. “I can’t consider it’s actually the final one,” somebody mentioned, not for the primary time. “What are we even going to do subsequent summer season?” my good friend lamented. “Are we going to love … must get actually into Phish?” “We’re NOT entering into Phish,” another person insisted, although all of us agreed we might most likely go see Phish at Madison Sq. Backyard in August.
We placed on our final clear Useless T-shirts—we had been all operating low and buying and selling with each other—and headed again to the ballpark. A couple of of us had determined final minute to improve our tickets so we may very well be on the ground. I had by no means been on the ground for a Useless & Co. present; we all the time don’t spend the additional cash and remorse it later, so this time, one final time, we weren’t going to make that mistake. I mentioned I needed to listen to “Bertha,” and we bought it, instantly, and instantly we knew that each single member of the band was utterly on, locked in. Bobby, as my good friend noticed, was “actually cooking.” Jeff Chimenti, Oteil Burbridge, Mickey Hart, additionally cooking. And Mayer—I’ve by no means seen him, maybe, cook dinner like that, leaning into each second more durable than I’ve ever seen him lean, and he all the time leans in arduous, given that he’s most likely amongst different issues one of many biggest dwelling guitarists.
“How can I write about John Mayer’s faces?” I typed in my Notes app on the primary night time of exhibits. Sadly there isn’t any different means I can describe it however to say that whereas he’s jamming he usually kind of seems to be on the verge of getting an orgasm for 3 hours straight, and we’re with him your entire time.
The factor is, the expertise of a superb jam-band present actually does have rather a lot in widespread with intercourse. “Is jamming like edging?” I requested my good friend on the primary night time, and we each burst out laughing, however, effectively, there’s a purpose one among my pals is persistently yelling “Jeff Chimenti make me come!” after a extremely good keyboard part. With a Useless & Co. present, you kind of know the way it’s going to go proper from the start, as a result of there’s sort of a well-known script. The band might be going to open with one thing upbeat (“Let the Good Occasions Roll” is an everyday possibility) after which they’ll lead you thru some others (just a few jams, a set break, not less than a pair definitive hits, an interlude for “Drums” and “House,” the grand finale, and the inevitable return for the encore, often sluggish and candy). And on a regular basis you might be simply ready, ready, ready, for that climactic second when possibly they are going to drop into “Morning Dew,” or make the pitch-perfect change from “China Cat Sunflower” into “I Know You Rider.” And but it’s nonetheless stunning, since you don’t know the way they’re doing to get there or when, and possibly you’ll find yourself some other place totally, like in an prolonged riff throughout “Eyes of the World,” however then you definitely come again into your self, known as again by some acquainted, lovely line that’s etched into your coronary heart: “There comes a redeemer …” Jeff Chimenti make me come!
That is Jeff Chimenti.
That’s what it’s like for me, anyway; I can’t actually say what it will be like for you. However I can say with complete certainty that this ultimate night time was one of the best present I’ve ever seen, that all the pieces was superlative. “Good Lovin’,” which isn’t even that good of a tune, was by some means wonderful. “Hardest ‘Good Lovin’ ’ ever?” requested a good friend. Mayer performed and sang “Althea” heartrendingly earlier than a pink sundown. “Greatest ‘Althea’ ever?” Because it bought darkish, drones flew above the stadium within the formation of the Steal Your Face brand after which later morphed right into a skeleton that was tipping its hat to all of us, even to the 1000’s of people that couldn’t get tickets and had been listening from outdoors the stadium. (Two of my pals had been amongst them.) Thanks San Francisco! Thanks Bobby! Thanks John!
I considered a poem by Mark Strand, the strains “We started to consider // the night time wouldn’t finish.” And we did start to consider that, hoping a bit desperately for a rumored third set, despite the fact that logically we knew there could be a tough stadium curfew, and as somebody mentioned final summer season, sitting on a curb after the final present of that yr, out of money to purchase nitrous, “All good issues should come to an finish.” However should they? That’s what we’re all the time questioning and testing, and possibly partially why the ends of those nights can tip towards extremes. The band performed the ballad “Brokedown Palace”—“Fare you effectively, fare you effectively / I really like you greater than phrases can inform”—after which in a second of shock, one thing nobody noticed coming, one final encore, one other model of “Not Fade Away.” That they had began the primary San Francisco present with that tune, they usually got here again to it, and it was each upbeat and tender, all of us pledging, “You already know our love won’t fade away!” And the proper factor is that it gained’t.
Steal your face above the stadium.
Sophie Haigney is the net editor of The Paris Evaluate.
