Wednesday night, I was at the Garden State Art Center for the Allman Brothers with Bob Weir and Ratdog opening. Ratdog was pretty good; they played a variety of Dead songs of course, only one long rambling, meaningless and boring free form. Most of it was tight, good music. I really enjoyed their cover of “Come Together”. I think it was the highlight of their set.
Now to explain my thread title; I had “Mr. Obnoxious Concert Guy behind me”[sup]TM[/sup]. He kept up a steady steam of loud play-by-play to the younger guys with him. Half his information was wrong. He treated the concert like a ball game. At one point, he pulled out his phone and got even louder. As he was talking to his lady from his seat, directly behind me, he was telling her that he was at the Doobie Brothers concert and Warthog was playing.
“Yeah, Warthog, you know, the Dead Band” … pause … “NO, THE GRATEFUL DEAD SPIN-OFF BAND” … pause…
“Oh, Catdog, no, Ratdog, yeah that’s it Ratdog”… 2-3 more minutes of inane chatter that had no place at a concert.
Well, after that exchange, my brother and I were laughing our asses off. I was annoyed at the dude, but hell, how often do you get a real life story that funny to tell? Besides, I was not a big fan of Ratdog, I was there for the Allman Brothers Band. At least during “Come Together”, he stopped doing play by play, unfortunately he decided to sing along off-key and off-time. A few more giggles were had.
Well “Warthog” played a good mostly crisp, 2-hour set. At the end, my brother, the wiseass, held up his lighter and let out a “WARTHOG!!!”. At this point, we both broke up laughing again. BTW: My brother was/is a Deadhead. He really enjoyed everything Ratdog played.
30 minutes later, the Allman Brothers took the stage, from the opening note they rocked. It was great. This is my 8th Allman Brothers show and the best one I attended. “Mr. Obnoxious Concert Guy behind me”[sup]TM[/sup] resumed his stream of consciousness spiel. So after the first song, I turned to him, “Excuse me, (blood pressure now boiling), could you please stop talking over the show, you just don’t let up and you are ruining the show for me.”
He looked confused, stunned even. One of his friends looked ready to fight, the other friend actually looked thankful, like he too wanted his friend to shut the hell up. He apologized and said, “We’ll stop. No problem, enjoy the show man.” That was it, “Mr. Obnoxious Concert Guy behind me”[sup]TM[/sup] actually was quiet, most of the rest of the show.
One of the highlights was a long version of the Dylan’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’ but much closer to a really long wild Hendrix version.
The show was great, I was hoping for “Whipping Post” and for the encore , they played “Melissa” very much note for note standard and then finished up with a 25 minute “Whipping Post” jam that made my night. WooHoo! Damn they were good. Best and tightest rhythm section I have ever heard live. Great show.
Jim {I hope my anecdote was mildly amusing for others}
