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Customer Reviews: Average Rating:  Rating : - Get Your Fill of Phil
When I purchased this CD, I was not quite sure how I would react to it. Well, being a Grateful Dead fan for many, many years, I felt I would be somewhat biased in a positive sense.
Admittedly, I guess I am, but hey, that's how it all pans out. This is an excellent recording of a live concert at the Jones Beach Theater in Wantaugh, Long Island, NY from the summer of 2006. Quite a formidable group and ensemble of really ripe musicians, they play with PASSION and you can feel that in every note of every song on this CD.
What stands out to me is their re-working of Ruben and Cerise - a tune originally recorded on Cats Out Under the Stars by good ol' Captain Trips - Jerry Garcia sometime around the mid 70's; Phil and Phriends really pull that one off with style and grace - you could feel the time and tone of the song via the music and the lyrics - somewhere, I think, in New Orleans prior to the Lousianna Purchase when the French were still colonizing the area. Beautiful playing and fusion of the alto sax and the mandolin, juxtaposed with Phil's electrically eclectic way of playing bass - not to mention Trey's work and Rob Baracas' Keyboard Kapers here and of course, Mr. Molo on drums.
The other "Gem" that stands out on this album is the song that immediately segues out of Ruben and Cerise - I believe it's titled "Let it Go". Quite a pastiche of different flavors of bends, turns, and really nifty phrasing of the lyrics which the music wraps up in a beautiful package. Kind of very upbeat and ironically relevant to Phil's recent announcement that he has Prostate Cancer - "I'm not ready to go - I'm never ready to go"....
Let's hope that Phil and his Phriends never go and that they will be around a lot longer - "let it ride, let if flow, let it go!" + See Full Customer Review |  |