It was fun, but listening to John Mayer trying to play over Althea was a bit awkward. He seemed uncomfortable making the changes.
 
Great to seem them out there, though, and I loved the drummer.

I didn't know John Mayer was doing a show; I'll have to see if I can get it, he seems cool...listening to Dead covers here compared to concert recordings posted, I have to say I prefer the covers because they're the distilled origins and essence; I love jamming but to make a SONG you need to distill it to the core themes ( sorry, I'm making moonshine right now, so I'm into concentrating)...I saw SLEEP on Saturday night, who were awesome...the most awesome rigs; Al the bass player had THREE SVT STACKS with tho backup heads and a HIWATT half stack...Matt Pike had a Marshall jcm800 stack, a HIWATT stack( in white; never seen one before, looked awesome) and an Orange stack; full stacks too...HUGE is all I can say...hate to be the roadies...Tony

Edwin; yeah, the Althea didn't seem to work as well as the Truckin'.

Yeah, caught the Weir/Mayer performance on FB, and almost didn't recognize Keltner w/out the massive DW set.... It was only until I honed in on his left foot that I made the connection.  
I did a gig w/ that bass player a few years back, I provided backline for all three bands.... I gave him a Walter Woods head, but I think he was eying the F2-B in my rack...

I think a lot of people write off Jerry Garcia's playing, but whatever you say about him, he knew how to play through changes (and thankfully, so does Trey, which does make him a good choice for this summer). Sometimes that doesn't become obvious until someone else tries to do it,  full of confidence that the same old blues licks will still work.
 
But I enjoyed both, it's nice to see Bob in better shape. I never liked his slide playing much in the past, but now I see it as entertaining performance art.

That has to be the most PC comment about Weir's slide playing I have heard to date. As horrible as Weir's slide playing can be Jerry's wasn't much better... strange considering what a sweet sound he got on  pedal steel.
 
Thought the Weir/Mayer Truckin' was much better than the Althea but the Althea wasn't bad. Keltner's drumming on Truckin' was IMO exceptional, beautiful solid groove with lots of subtle melodic touches in the fills.
 
I hadn't looked at this thread in a while and missed the mention of a new Norman Blake CD. Been a huge fan since the early 70s so I will definitely be checking it out. Thanks...

As far as slide playing, once you go to lap or pedal steel it's hard to go back... I'm just used to the weight and pressure of a heavy bar, and the muting pressure of my later digits, that when I try to play bottleneck now, it's just awful.... Luckily, I'm the first to notice...

 
Psychedelic to the max....

The bass player on the Meyer/Weir gig looked familiar.  It took me a while of searching, but his name is Sean Hurley.  And he looked familiar because I've seen him in videos of Meyer posted here before; for instance with Meyer playing an Alembic Darling.  He's also an established session player with an extensive portfolio.

Yeah Dave, I didn't know of the Mayer connection until these videos went up. The gig I did w/ him was Alicia Keys backing band supporting a local kid w/ connections to SST in Hoboken where they all used to rehearse... I don't know if the facility recovered from hurricane Sandy... Last I heard they were only doing cartage in the city.....

Dave, I noticed another established (!) session guy in the vid from Irvine with the Darling:  The second drummer (your right, stage left), Jim Keltner !  Further down that YouTube page is a clip from 'Later with Jools Holland' where JM's playing a Wolf.
 
Joey

Dave, I noticed another established (!) session guy in the vid from Irvine with the Darling:  The second drummer (your right, stage left), Jim Keltner !  Further down that YouTube page is a clip from 'Later with Jools Holland' where JM's playing a Wolf.
 
Joey

Listening to Matthew Sweet Altered Beast while doing some jewellery work and neck sanding on my new bass project (whee!) great album...Tony

Joey; yeah, Keltner's played on one or two things.
 
 

Speaking of Keltner, here's , featuring Keltner, Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, and John Hiatt.