Chauncey and Chumley's Dad

Dead & Company Wrigley Field Chicago, Illinois June 24, 2022

I’ve been to a dozen Grateful Dead concerts from 1975 to the early 90’s. (Most of those shows at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin in the 80’s.) Jerry Garcia died in 1995 and after that, I never saw any of the Grateful Dead spinoff bands. By 1995, I was well into full adult mode, owning a home, raising kids, and managing a career. My concert activity slowed down at that time in my life, and by the time it picked up a bit of steam again (2003, thanks to the Dandy Warhols), I had basically moved on from the Grateful Dead. My concert attendance reignited like a jet-propelled rocket once my kids were raised. Aware that Dead & Company had become a draw on par with the original band, with a couple of exceptions (Rolling Stones and Pearl Jam), I had mostly moved on from most stadium and arena shows preferring theaters, clubs, and outdoor festivals. However, when my wife expressed interest in seeing Dead and Company, I thought, “Why not? It’s been about 30 years, and Wrigley Field (Chicago) is an awesome concert venue. Let’s do it!”

DAMN, I’M SO GLAD I WENT!!! It was just so fucking awesome. I was back in the mood the moment they opened the show with Man Smart, Woman Smarter. The first set began at 6:45 in the beautiful sundrenched summer evening. They played 75 minutes before intermission. At 8:45, as the evening had transitioned to dusk, they returned to the stage and played a 130-minute set, finishing up just before 11:00. Having spent much of my lifetime in Wrigley Field (a few concerts, scores of Cubs games and even a Bears game), I used my knowledge of the old ballpark to select the perfect seats. Upper deck above home plate on the third base side provided an excellent view of the stage in center field. We also had the roof for cover, but it wasn’t needed with dry conditions, temperatures in the low 80’s, and a delightful breeze from Lake Michigan.

The band included original Dead members Bob Weir (guitar, vocals), Mickey Hart (drums) and Bill Kreutzmann. (Bill only played on two songs as he had suffered a minor injury a few days earlier.) The rest of the band included John Mayer (guitar and vocals), Oteil Burbridge (who I had seen once before in the early days of Tedeschi Trucks Band), Jeff Chimenti (keyboards and vocals) and Jay Lane (drums, sitting in for Bill). John Mayer is quite a competent replacement for Jerry Garcia. He is an excellent guitar player, although not as fluid as Jerry was. Bob Weir sounded and played great and seems to have not lost anything to age. Keyboards and the rhythm section were excellent. My overall impression was that they were a bit tighter and a bit more polished than the original band. Not to take anything away from the original band, because in those days, it wasn’t necessarily about being polished. It was more about the feel of the music. At this point in their career, the band has much better technology which aids their sound. Also, compared to my early concert days of the 70’s and 80’s, I think the audience has a greater expectation for the live bands to be at the top of its game, so there is that factor. On the other hand, Dead and Company have not been making any studio albums. Without that pressure, they can focus exclusively on honing their live sound. All-in-all, it was a wonderful night. My only regret is wondering why I didn’t see Dead and Company sooner.

Set 1:

·         Man Smart, Woman Smarter (King Radio cover)

·         Eyes of the World (Grateful Dead cover)

·         Bertha (Grateful Dead cover)

·         Next Time You See Me (Junior Parker cover)

·         Dark Star (Grateful Dead cover - preceded by a Wharf Rat jam)

·         Dear Mr. Fantasy (Traffic cover)

·         Hey Jude (The Beatles cover - coda only)

·         Althea (Grateful Dead cover)

Set 2:

·         Throwing Stones (Grateful Dead cover)

·         Brown-Eyed Women (Grateful Dead cover)

·         Estimated Prophet (Grateful Dead cover - with The Other One tease)

·         Sing Me Back Home (Merle Haggard cover)

·         Truckin' (Grateful Dead cover - brief "Foxy Lady" reference

·         Drums (Grateful Dead cover with Bill Kreutzmann and Oteil Burbridge)

·         Space (Grateful Dead cover)

·         All Blues (Miles Davis cover - D&C debut)

·         Cumberland Blues (Grateful Dead cover)

·         Stella Blue(Grateful Dead cover)

·         Not Fade Away (The Crickets cover with Bill Kreutzmann)

I’m kicking off the weekend with the band that I am seeing tonight!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQJz0ly741rjN_cfsW5ktYQ

The state of the Cubs today: I go to a game with the temperature in the 50′s and a relentless 20 mph wind off the lake, see them get destroyed by the Dodgers, and I get a David Ross bobblehead that is a leftover from 2020. It’s going to be a long season.

I was so saddened to hear of the passing of Tom Seaver. He was one of the all-time great pitchers and human beings in Major League Baseball. He was truly a pitcher as opposed to a thrower. He used his legs to generate power in his delivery. That also helped him preserve his arm and continue as a starting pitcher into his early 40’s. He was a student of the game and he was always focused when he was on the mound. He led by example and I do not think anyone ever had a bad thing to say about him.  

My first exposure to Tom Seaver was May 4, 1969. My buddy Chris and I went to a Sunday double header at Wrigley Field. The Cubs had a great team that year and appeared destined to go to the World Series. On the other hand, their opponents, the New York Mets, were the perennial bottom feeders of the National League. Surely, we would see the Cubs sweep the two-game set! The Mets, however, turned the tables on the Cubs and won both games by identical 3-2 scores. Tom Seaver was the starting pitcher in Game 1 and went the distance for the win. Tug McGraw matched Seaver’s performance in Game 2. I remember being stunned. How could the mighty Cubs drop two games to the lowly Mets? It was a portend of things to come. After holding onto first place most of the season, the Cubs would infamously collapse in September and the Mets would go on to win 100 games and the World Series. Tom Seaver posted an incredible 25-7 record with a 2.21 ERA.

Seaver’s career with the Mets was from 1967-1977. He was traded to the Cincinnati Reds during the ’77 season. He pitched his only no-hitter in a Reds uniform. He stayed with the Reds until the end of the 1982 season when he was traded back to the Mets. Having posted 9 wins for the Mets that year and just 5 wins for the Reds the previous season, it seemed that his star was fading. At age 39, the Mets left him off their protected list, assuming nobody would want an old pitcher with a high salary. However, the Chicago White Sox claimed Seaver in a free-agent compensation draft. Seaver, no doubt, wanted to finish his career with the Mets. My recollection is that he was fit to be tied over the fact that the Mets left him unprotected and he threatened to retire. Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf convinced him otherwise and he joined the team. (Coincidentally, the pitcher he replaced in the Sox starting rotation was his old ’69 Mets teammate, Jerry Koosman. Seaver and Koosman were the one-two punch in the Mets starting rotation and led the team to their ’69 championship.) Seaver would go on to have a couple of fine seasons with the White Sox; 15-11, 3.95 ERA in ’84 (age 39) and 16-11, 3.17 ERA in ’85 (age 40). Remarkable! By today’s standards, he could have been the ace on just about any starting rotation in MLB. During the 1986 season, the White Sox traded him to the Boston Red Sox and he retired at the end of that season. It was wonderful being able to see Seaver pitch for the White Sox. I went to a lot of White Sox games in the 80’s and got to see him on several occasions. He won his 300th career game in a White Sox uniform, and finished his Hall of Fame career with 311-206, 2.86 ERA. He was clearly one of the greatest pitchers to play the game and I am glad I was around to follow his career.

Federal League, Weeghman Park and Wrigley Field Yahoo Sports posted an article today about baseball’s Federal League. It was on this date in 1914 that the league played it’s first game between the Baltimore Terrapins and the Buffalo Buffeds. Although the game was played in Baltimore, a photo of what we now know as Wrigley Field was used for the article. (Top photo.) I believe the view is on Addison Street looking west toward Clark Street. You can see the Blome Sinek Construction Company sign in the background. The now 106-year-old baseball park had just opened. Before the ballpark was the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley FIeld, it was the Chicago Whales and Weeghman Park. Charles Weeghman built the ballpark for the Whales of the upstart Federal League (1914-1915). It was a short-lived major league and the last league that tried to compete with the firmly established National and American Leagues. After two competitive seasons, the FL tried to sue the NL and AL under the anti-trust Sherman Act. Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis (who would later become the first MLB commissioner) encouraged the leagues to settle out of court. The NL and AL proceeded to buy out the FL teams including the Whales. Weeghman’s deal was sweetened as he was allowed to buy the Cubs which he promptly moved into Wrigley Field. When I was maybe 8 or 9 (circa 1964-65), I was sitting in the Wrigley Field bleachers with my friend Jimmy and his mother. She got to talking to an older man sitting next to us. Referring to the Cubs, he stated, “I remember when they were called the Whales.” I knew my Cubs history and I did not think what he said was correct. It was sometime later that my dad told me about the Federal League and the Whales. So the old guy was basically right. Maybe he was a young boy when the Whales played and he thought they just changed their name. (We didn’t have the internet to fact check back then.) Here is the Yahoo article: https://sports.yahoo.com/today-baseball-history-federal-league-151559837.html For a little history on another competing league that never got off the ground, and it’s eccentric entrepreneur, read my post on Alfred Lawson: https://chaunceyandchumleysdad.tumblr.com/search/lawson

The Regrettes @ Metro Chicago

I had a great evening seeing The Regrettes at Metro, one of my favorite bands at one of my favorite venues in Chicago. With temps in the 40’s and a strong wind, this was our first cold evening of the fall. Consequently, the short two-block walk from the Addison stop of the Red Line felt worse than it was. To distract myself from the chill, I walked along the outside walls of Wrigley Field and in my mind, I reviewed the career of each Cubs star who had an engraved brick on the walkway. It seemed rather strange to see a shuttered Wrigley Field and almost no people on the streets just three weeks after I was at a ball game. After a relaxing stop at Bernie’s Tap for a BLTA and a Green Line, I headed over to the Metro.

Having seen The Regrettes last year a Lollapalooza, I had told myself I would go see them again when they came out with a second album. Their recently released sophomore LP, How Do You Love? is a fine album. The first album, Feel Your Feelings Fool! was tremendous and thus created a challenge for their second effort, but they came back with solid set of songs. As expected, the bulk of the show was songs from the second album.

With this being an all-ages show and The Regrettes being a very young band, I was anticipating a very young crowd. I was pleasantly surprised to see people of all ages at the show. On the other hand, it’s not surprising that this band has such broad appeal. They are a pure Rock ‘n’ Roll band and their guitar-based Power Pop Garage Punk sound easily crosses over generations. Front woman Lydia Night is very entertaining on stage and I love her singing. Having just a bit of a rasp gives her a great sound as Rock singer. Genessa Gariano was solid as usual on lead guitar. New bass player Brooke Dickson was good and fits in well with the band. Along with Genessa, she provided fine backup vocals. And there is Drew Thomsen, who I think is a very good drummer. He gets overlooked as he drums in the background of the of this otherwise all-female band, but he does his job with enthusiasm and aplomb. I missed the opening act, Hala, but I did see the second act, Greer. Nice sounding band and they played a good rocking set. The Regrettes set list is noted below.

1.       Are You In Love? (Intro)

2.       California Friends

3.       Dress Up

4.       Come Through

5.       Go Love You

6.       Picture Perfect

7.       Hey Now

8.       Lacy Loo

9.       Pumpkin

10.   Here You Go

11.   I Dare You

12.   More than a Month

13.   Fog

14.   Seashore

15.   Stop and Go

16.   How Do You Love?

17.   Coloring Book (encore)

18.   Poor Boy (encore)

Da North Side

To paraphrase Harry Caray, “You can’t beat fun in springtime in Chicago.”

Cubs Home Opener

It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame! Let’s play two!!!

I finally got out to see the World Champion Cubs for the first time this season. They looked like anything but champions, losing 9-1 to Colorado. However, it was an absolutely gorgeous summer day in Chicago, and it was cool to see the changes around outside of Wrigley Field as construction continues. Although I’m still a bit put off by Wrigley Field having become a tourist destination, I have to say I am impressed with what they have done thus far. Clark Street is going through a lot of changes as well (as seen in the bottom photo).

A couple of days ago, I did a post about Frank Zappa and some shows he played in Chicago and Carbondale, IL in 1978 and 1980. In the post, I mentioned that to my knowledge, of the many Zappa shows I had been to, the only one that ended up on record was a small part of the Mother’s Day show May 11, 1974 at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago which appeared on Roxy And Elsewhere. I later remembered that there was at least one other show I was at that ended up on an album. In March of 1988, I was at a Zappa show at the Auditorium Theater when Sting made a surprise guest appearance. Sting, Frank and the band performed The Police song Murder By Numbers. The performance ended up on Zappa’s album, Broadway The Hard Way. (This was the the last time I would see Frank Zappa in concert as he stopped touring after 1988 and passed away in 1993. It was the first time I saw Sting in concert. I saw him again at the Arie Crown Theater in Chicago on February 13, 1991 and I saw The Police at Wrigley Field on Chicago on July 6, 2007.)

So I’m kicking of the weekend with that magical moment when Frank Zappa and Sting collaborated on stage to perform Murder By Numbers which includes priceless intros of Sting by Zappa and the song by Sting.

So much for prognosticating. After my speculation that Green Day would headline Riot Fest in September because they had no Chicago dates on their tour, the band announced a concert at Wrigley Field on August 24. I suppose they could still play Riot Fest, but it seems far less likely now. Either way, I’m going to kick off the weekend with Green Day and a tune from their latest release, Revolution Radio. I’m sure Green Days fans in Chicago will be Bouncing Off The (ivy covered) Wall in anticipation of the August show.

Wrigley Field getting a major league facelift.

The Chicago Cubs kick off their post season run tonight against the San Francisco Giants at Wrigley Field in Chicago. So I am kicking off the weekend with Land Of Wrigley, a bit of Doo-Wop from Gary, Indiana a cappella singers Stormy Weather.

Bring on the Giants!!!