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IP THE JAM ALIVE
AND MOVING FORWARD
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bob (SALON)
Voted Best of Athens 2005 & 2006
www.bobsalon.com
monday-friday 9-7 Saturday 9-4
398 foundry street athens ga 30601
706.546.0950
W ith seemingly little left to prove,
Grateful Dead founder Bob Weir hits
the road again on an East Coast tour
that will bring him back through Athens. When
most young bands leave the road after a few
weeks a year, Weir and his band Ratdog are true
road dogs, logging up the tour bus hours and
keeping a small army of roadies and minders busy
for months at a time. With this mobile existence
comes a turn-and-burn attitude leaving cities as
anonymous skylines and backstage areas as bun
ker-type dining rooms. But Weir says he plans to
connect with Athens. "Athens is a pretty rockin'
town," he says.
Although this will be Ratdog's first local show
in 10 years, the band was recently in Atlanta
performing a gig widely regarded as leaving many
in the audience limp and bored. With so many
shows a year, Weir is bound to offer some duds,
but when they do succeed—a majority of the
time, in fact—they do so on a combination of
song selection and delivery. Weir says he tries
to address both components before and during a
show. "The way I do a set list is, first off, I have
a database of tunes and I bring up the last time
we were in said town, and those songs are auto
matically out," he says. "And then I look back at
the last five to seven shows that we've done and
those tunes are automatically out. Then we start
from there. You have to have a big repertoire to
be able to do that, but we do and that's how we
do it."
Using the set list as a guide, Weir hopes for
the best and sometimes, like in Atlanta last
November, things fall flat. Adjusting from the
stage will sometimes re-energize the scene. "We
go off the pre-written set list all the time," he
says. "The set list is often known as a 'pack of
lies' or 'wishful thinking.' That said, if the set
is seeming slow, if I miscalculated when I was
doing the set list, oftentimes we will inject
something with a little more thump to it. In the
middle of the set, if I get to thinking about it,
sometimes we li change direction or evolve the
jam into something that's got a little more kick
to it."
At another recent show, Weir detected some
sluggishness and dialed up some jazzy energy.
"Like for instance, the other day we brought up a
tune that this band had never played," he says.
"An old Miles Davis tune, 'Milestones'. It wasn't
on our original set list. It occurred to me that
in writing the set list, I had neglected to put
enough upbeat stuff in there. I was scratching
my head wondering what we could do and came
up with that."
For those old-school Deadheads in the au
dience, there may be a longing for older Weir
tunes, and a feeling of overload when it comes
to Jerry Garcia compositions. "Some of my old
songs, I've sung enough for the time being," says
Weir. "As I get lonesome for [Garcia songs,] I
bring them back around."
Fans looking for Weir to share the stage with
the remaining Grateful Dead members again (the
show was in Atlanta in 2004) will have to keep
waiting, as there have not been any recent dis
cussions. "I wouldn't be surprised if it happen[s]
again at some point," he says. "If the remaining
members of the Grateful Dead do reconvene, I
would like to do it as a quartet. That would be
by far the most interesting and by far the most
meaningful way to do it. I'd have to evolve some
more [as a lead guitarist], but I'm up to the
challenge."
By the time Ratdog comes to town, the band
will be well-oiled from three weeks on the road.
Weir mentions that there's talk of some fresh
songs. "The new stuff we're working on we're
going to try to get fluffed up by the time we
get down to your neck of the woods," he says.
There's one easy way to find out.
Todd A. Prusin
( N
WHO: Bob Weir & Ratdog
WHERE: Classic Center Grand Hall
WHEN: Thursday, March 22
HOW MUCH: $35—$37
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