Paul M
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How Barack Obama resurrected The Dead
You just can't make up the headlines.
Quote:How Barack Obama resurrected The Dead
AP, Apr 17, 2009 5:10 am PDT
He's still got a little work to do on the economy, but already President Barack Obama has accomplished at least one task that had appeared all but impossible just a year ago: He's put The Dead back on the road.
As the core surviving members of the Grateful Dead, once the world's biggest concert draw, barrel across the country for the first time in five years, bass player Phil Lesh says they have Obama, and also Lesh's youngest son, Brian, to thank.
After Lesh, who had never publicly supported a presidential candidate, threw his lot in with Obama, he was anxious to do a benefit concert for him. But he was all but done with The Dead, so it was going to feature his other band, Phil and Friends.
"My son Brian said, 'No Daddy, you've got to get The Dead together because it will be so much more meaningful and important,'" the musician chuckled during a recent phone interview.
One benefit performance led to another and then an inaugural ball concert. Next thing they knew, Lesh, guitarist Bob Weir and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann were back together.
"It came off so well that we thought we owe it to ourselves to play again," Lesh said. "It brings out something in all of us, in our gestalt and our totality, that we can't deliver, we can't find anywhere else."
For the tour, which got under way Sunday in Greensboro, N.C., and runs through the middle of next month, the band is breaking out what Lesh calls the Grateful Dead classics. The musicians will cherry-pick from 160 songs honed during weeks of rehearsals.
"We actually played 13 days in a row at one point. Not bad for a bunch of old beasts," laughed Hart.
But, all four say, there is still plenty of original music to be found in the jamming at the band's four-hour shows and in a rhythm section rearranged by the drummers.
"We didn't want to go out and just do the same thing," said Kreutzmann, who with Hart wrote new percussion parts for the tour.
The only thing missing is the group's iconic lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, whose death from a heart attack in 1995 prompted the band to drop Grateful from it's name and to all but abandon what had been 30 years of nearly nonstop touring. Warren Haynes replaces him for this tour.
"We all miss him every day," said Lesh. "At the same time, we're still here on Earth and we're still making music. And by God we'll continue to make music until we drop."
http://new.music.yahoo.com/grateful-dead...--61987375
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04-18-2009 04:58 PM |
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smn1256
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RE: How Barack Obama resurrected The Dead
I wish Obama could bring back "Married With Children." I loved that show.
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04-18-2009 09:24 PM |
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SumOfAllFears
Grim Reaper of Misguided Liberal Souls
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RE: How Barack Obama resurrected The Dead
The only thing ObamaMessiah brought back from the dead is his cabinet, but that move was more like his version of the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"
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04-18-2009 09:41 PM |
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nomad2u2001
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RE: How Barack Obama resurrected The Dead
(04-18-2009 09:24 PM)smn1256 Wrote: I wish Obama could bring back "Married With Children." I loved that show.
That show was ok. I just wish he could stop the reruns of Matlock, Murder She Wrote, and In the Heat of The Night. Bad memories from my childhood that my mom insists on watching.
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04-19-2009 12:34 AM |
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Owl 69/70/75
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RE: How Barack Obama resurrected The Dead
(04-19-2009 12:34 AM)nomad2u2001 Wrote: (04-18-2009 09:24 PM)smn1256 Wrote: I wish Obama could bring back "Married With Children." I loved that show.
That show was ok. I just wish he could stop the reruns of Matlock, Murder She Wrote, and In the Heat of The Night. Bad memories from my childhood that my mom insists on watching.
I much prefer those reruns over anything new. The last TV series that I could bring myself to watch with any regularity was Law and Order when Michael Moriarty played the assistant DA. I simply haven't found anything since that I thought was worth a d*mn.
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04-19-2009 06:36 AM |
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Tripster
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RE: How Barack Obama resurrected The Dead
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FcFcFcFcFcFc ......... I am going to have to listen to the Poor Man's Mungo Jerry AGAIN !!!!!!!!!
I had enough of turning the dial in the 60's & 70's on these maggots and now they are back.
I am so happy for all you water-headed "Dead Heads" .... you have no Idea How Appropriately that Title Fits You ....
Well let us see, the Great Christian Barry Hussein, has Walked on Water, Raised the Dead, Healed the Sick (by letting them die from lack of Health Care), ....... ummmmmm
Has he "Turned Water into Wine yet" ????? Anyone ??????
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04-19-2009 09:20 AM |
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