Legendary Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh turned 80 yesterday, March 15th! Lesh was meant to celebrate at New York's Capitol Theater with a three night Phil Lesh and Friends Birthday celebration, but that's been since postponed due to Coronavirus restrictions.
To make up for it, Relix streamed a Phil-o-Thon of previous shows at Cap Theater yesterday. It began with November, 1, 2018 featuring Jimmy Herring, Karl Denson, and The Terrapin Family Band along with three shows from Phil’s 2019 birthday run with John Scofield, Jackie Greene, John Molo, Benmont Tench, Grahame Lesh and more.
We're feeling like celebrating Phil's birthday all week long, so we're going to reminisce on a drool-worthy setlist from Grateful Dead's March 15th concert in 1973 at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. The show was the first of three at the Coliseum.
Nassau was a venue the band would go on to play more 41 more times! Not only was this show on Lesh's 33rd Birthday, but it was also the Dead's first show since Pigpen has died on March 8th of that year. Pigpen had played in the Dead up until 1972.
The concert lasted 26-songs in total, and the first set opened up with Chuck Berry's "Promised Land." It was a cover-heavy set as they did three Bob Weir solo songs: "Mexicali Blues," "Looks Like Rain," and a 24 minute rendition of "Playing in the Band" to close out Set 1. They also did two Jerry Garcia songs: "They Love Each Other" and "Deal."
Lesh got his moment in the Birthday spotlight as he sang "Box of Rain" eight songs into he first half of the performance. Other Dead goodies in the set included "Row Jimmy," "Tennessee Jed," and "Here Comes Sunshine," which had only been performed for the 5th time ever at that point!
14 songs concluded that first set and the second got underway with "Loose Lucy." They shook things up with a cover of "Big River" by Johnny Cash transitioning into Garcia's "Sugaree."
The triad of "Truckin'" into "The Other One" into a 20 minute version of 'The Eyes of the World" stuck with fans the most that night. The song then leaned into the emotional "China Doll."
The set ended with two staples - "Sugar Magnolia" and "Casey Jones."
WHAT A NIGHT!
Check out the full setlist here:
You can listen to the entire set here:
We hope Phil Lesh is having a wonderful Birthday week and us deadheads are looking forward to seeing him at the Lockn' Festival in Virginia in June!