Tuesday, April 5, 2011

annual Allmans

The Allmans recently finished up their annual NYC residency, this year back at the Beacon (where they belong).  I went on Monday 3/14 and saw a great show.  This year the band focused on earlier material (mostly from their Fillmore days) as 2011 marks the 40th anniversary of the recording of the Fillmore East album.  Over the course of the run they pulled from a tight list of songs, only playing a few new covers, and very few songs from recent albums.  On the night I saw them they did play "Egypt" an instrumental Derek rips on they wrote a few years ago that they never recorded.  They didn't play 1 song from "Enlightened Rogues", which must remind them too much of Dickey Betts, although it's an excellent record.  (They still won't touch "Blue Sky" live, although Warren busted out a great version with Furthur at the Best Buy Theater during an off-night from the Allmans).  The special guests during the run were only so-so, with appearances by Dr. John, Steve Earle, Susan Tedeschi (obviously), David Hidalgo, being the better known.  I caught Bill Evans (sax) who was excellent, especially on "Dreams", and Bernie Williams, who I had (have) zero interest in hearing.  I've heard 8 or 9 shows from the run and the band sounds better than they did last year.  Jaimoe takes long breaks during the show and Gregg is still forgetting lyrics here and there, but the band soldiers on, the best live band in the world.  Derek and Warren are still phenomenal, and I hope they keep playing the Beacon forever.  Here's a video from Warren playing with Furthur doing "Blue Sky" and a clip from the Beacon.

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