Sad but true.....Phish is on hiatus after touring for 15 years and as of now they have no plan to unite anytime soon. Fortunately, some of the Phishies are still making music - and plenty of it. Anastasio just finished recording a new album with Oysterhead, a new band comprised of Primus bassist Les Claypool and Police drummer Stewart Copeland. However, this solo show will display the talents of bassist Tony Markellis and drummer Russ Lawton alongside Trey.

If one considers how Grateful St. Louis is for The Kind, The Shwag and Jake's Leg, there's no doubt that this city certainly knows how to honor its Dead. Truckin' into town are two of the ultimate Dead cover bands. Straight out of the kennel comes RatDog. Led by former Grateful guitarist Bob Weir, the band plays a repertoire of Bob's solo material, Dead favorites and, of course, select tracks from RatDog's premier 10 track CD, Evening Mood.

This a story about my own first mystical experience with the band.  I can't remember exactly what year...82 or 83, I believe.  It was Friday the 13th and we were at the Greek Theater in Berkley Cal.  It was a gorgeous day...mid 70s and not a cloud in the sky.  This was back in the day when sold out shows were simulcast outside the facility so you were assured of a good time even without a ticket.  I was selling and trading painters hats with the steal your face stamped on top and was gifted a set of berkeley community theater stubs to get me in the shows.

I was born in 1965, the same year The Grateful Dead was born and the year that the songs that would land on the Beatles' landmark album "Rubber Soul" were probably starting to gel in the minds of the newly turned-on Fab Four.  I grew up about as big of a Beatle fan as anyone ever could meet, especially when one considers that I was not even five years old when the band reached the end of their long and winding road.

There is a place I remember as being the last place I remember. I'll ask you kindly not to judge me too strongly as I recall the details of the onset of my present condition. There were situations there....Living creatures wore the skin of dead ones. I saw things moving in unnatural ways.  Things happening, things deliberately good, things like red traffic lights always being green and hash browns always properly browned on their tops.  Other things extreme and far more to the sinister side of things I felt were near.

Songs that have asterisks are ones that Susan Tedeski joined in on.  I don't even think they announced her at the show, b/c the whole time we all kept saying, who is that???  and she really didn't do much for the songs.  i would have at least expected her to stand out a bit during estimated prophet, but she didn't do the donna-back ups the way you'd expect.

I hope you are all doing well and had an enjoyable summer!  It is getting near spring here, evident by the pink flowers of the blooming peach trees.  Yet the weather in the Highlands is still very cold!  Some days, when it is cloudy or windy the temperature doesn't get much above 65, and when the sun is out it will get maybe up in the 70s.  The crops and grasses are brown and have died down, but the pine, eucalyptus and other evergreen shrubs remain as a presence of green.