Elvis Costello with Furthur

I've been on a serious Elvis Costello kick for several months now, and I am even using four of his albums as material for a course this term. And I have been avidly following Furthur, the band started in the fall of 2009 by Bob Weir and Phil Lesh, to the point where I have listened to every show they have played (from the Live Music Archive and the digital downloads of their shows that they are selling).

So of course I was thrilled to hear that Elvis had sat in with Furthur on Sunday night at Radio City Music Hall. His wife Diana Krall even sang "Ripple," and that's Larry Campbell on violin in the photo (whose wife Teresa Williams also sat in).

On Furthur

On Facebook, a friend asked what her Deadhead friends thought about John Kadlecik from the Dark Star Orchestra playing lead guitar with Phil Lesh and Bob Weir in their new band Furthur. Here's what I wrote in response to her question:

I've listened to all the Furthur shows on the archive, and at times Kadlecik does an excellent Jerry (one particular example is "Sugaree," where he's got the phrasing and fluidity of Jerry's signature runs for that song down). But he's at his best when he does something completely different than what Jerry usually did (there are several brilliant ... See Moreversions of "Candyman") or when he plays something Jerry rarely or never played ("Unbroken Chain" or Ratdog tunes or the Ryan Adams tunes).

But for me, the highlights of Furthur shows are, over and over again, Jeff Chimenti's piano solos (especially on "Unbroken" and "Eyes of the World").

A Grateful Dead Analysis

Deadheads will enjoy this statistical analysis of the relationship between the Grateful Dead's performance of songs and the fans' listening habits. (Thanks to Ron Silliman for the link.)

One thing I noted in my comment on Silliman's blog is that the most-played songs are all Weir tunes, but the most popular tunes are largely Garcia tunes. This might not be statistically significant, though, since Garcia simply had more tunes in the repertoire, so he did not have to repeat songs as often as Weir did.

Ratdog does Morning Dew

Bob Weir said in an interview I read a while back that he did not really want to do "Morning Dew" with Ratdog, because it was too much Jerry Garcia's song, or something like that. Well, now they've done it, and it brought tears to this old Deadhead's eyes. And probably to Bob's, as well!