1994-09-24 | Phil Lesh and Friends

1:07:28
Taper:
Taper - Troy Morentin Row M (off center)
Transferrer:
Transferred by gsarchivist on 2019-08-03 Mastering by Jamie Waddell
SHNID:
paf1994-09-24.150154.morentin.waddell.flac1648
Source:
Neumann KM140s > Panasonic SV250 > Master DAT
Lineage:
Digital Transfer - Panasonic SV250 > Sound Devices 722 Transferred by gsarchivist on 2019-08-03
Taper Notes:
View Notes- some songs go right into the next one with applause over the first notes
- hundreds of claps removed, crowd attenuated
- very nice recording

originally shared at www.shnflac.net on May 21, 2020

by Nicholas Meriwether
On August 24, listeners in the San Francisco Bay Area tuned to KPFA for David Gans's syndicated radio show The Grateful Dead Hour heard an announcement too good to believe: there would be a benefit concert a week after the Shoreline Dead shows that would feature a set by the band minus the drummers, billed as "Phil Lesh and Friends." As the first acoustic Dead in the area since 1981, this was a significant event for fans. When tickets went on sale twelve days later, at 10 a.m. on a Monday morning, they sold out in twenty minutes.

As the longest-running consistently touring major rock group, the Dead are known as a consummate electric band, but this mastery of their medium belies their fundamental fascination with the acoustic roots of American popular music. Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia had extensive experience in folk music before turning to rock, and Garcia made his own field recordings of Appalachian bluegrass to spur his banjo studies in the early Sixties. These influences are manifest in the band's repertoire today, and fans speculating on a dream set in the weeks before the show had to choose from a list of more than two dozen songs performed acoustically over the years.

The purpose of the evening's show was a benefit for Berkeley High School's music program, which had graduated numerous jazz luminaries over the years, as well as two rock stars: Country Joe McDonald and Phil Lesh. In keeping with the band's long-standing tradition of benefit concerts -- they have played more than eighty over their twenty-nine year history -- tonight's performance was engineered by Lesh, who had been approached by a member of the Berkeley Public Education Foundation the previous May at a reception held for him following his performance as guest conductor with the Berkeley Symphony, in their guest conductors' program. Because of budget cuts, Berkeley had cut its school music program entirely a few months before. Since Lesh's parents had moved to Berkeley solely for the sake of their teen-ager's musical education -- they couldn't afford private lessons, and the program at Berkeley was renowned -- Lesh's response was "This is an outrage," and he promised to see what he could do. Shortly after, the Grateful Dead's charity arm, the Rex Foundation, gave a $10,000 dollar grant to help save the program. And Lesh called the Berkeley Public Education Foundation later that summer to say that he could also organize a benefit concert on their behalf, and provide the services of a majority of the Grateful Dead. With the guidance of Bill Graham Presents' Bob Barsotti -- as well as the work of many other members of the Dead and BGP -- the benefit was born.

Berkeley Community Theater is on the campus of Berkeley High, and is clearly the showpiece for the school. A 3691 seat auditorium begun in 1941 and finished nine years later, BCT is a large Works Project Administration building designed by the team of Henry Gutterson and Will Corlett in the streamlined Deco style, with a beautiful interior, simply but tastefully decorated, excellent acoustics, and an ample balcony with an outdoor deck upstairs. Sight lines are good from almost anywhere inside, making it an ideal venue for acoustic music; it seems intimate, especially in contrast to the three concerts I saw the weekend before at the 20,000 seat Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View...
Enterzone Copyright © 1995

read the whole review here
http://www.philzone.com/reviews/rev940924.html