Phil Lesh kept “The Wheel” turning throughout the night on Wednesday at The Capitol Theatre as his most well-known group of Friends—”The Q,” featuring guitarists Warren Haynes and Jimmy Herring, keyboardist Rob Barraco, and drummer John Molo—returned to Port Chester for its second performance in three days to polish off the first week of his five-show 84th birthday residency in Port Chester, NY. The lineup also known as The Phil Lesh Quintet took the stage with a brief acapella reading of the chorus of “The Wheel” before closing the night with the full song hours later, bookending the evening.
After breezing through the first stretch of “Wheel”, the band steamrolled into the Haynes-sung “Night of a Thousand Stars” from Lesh’s 2002 solo album with The Q, There And Back Again. Despite this being only their third show together in nearly as many years, Phil & The Q were primed and ready to go as they dropped into the bluesy waltz of “New Speedway Boogie”, sung by Barraco. The band soon ditched the barroom boogie for a bit of interstellar freeform jamming, a mode Phil & The Q would lock into throughout the night. The show’s second set featured four consecutive songs that stretched past the 15-minute mark, with these five musical masters locking into the groupmind that has kept them tethered together for over 20 years.
While Monday’s residency-opening show explored some of the outer edges of the Dead canon, Wednesday’s second and final show with The Q stuck more to the heart of the band’s sacred songbook. In addition to “The Wheel” and “New Speedway Boogie”, Phil and The Q also hit favorites “Bird Song”, a first set-closing “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider”, “Shakedown Street”, the revered “Dark Star”, and an unexpected “Passenger” late in the game. Beyond those classics, Lesh still found ample opportunity to dig a little deeper with the ’60s relic “New Potato Caboose” in the first set and his opus “Unbroken Chain” in the second. Though there was concern for Lesh’s health after he stumbled onstage on Monday and played much of the show seated, on Wednesday the 83-year-old bassist showed virility as he continued his life’s work of searching for the sound.
Outside of Grateful Dead originals and the There and Back Again cut, the band also served up a double dose of Traffic jams. Coming out of the second set-opening free improv, Lesh and company found their way to “Dear Mr. Fantasy”, a cover favorite of the Dead’s 1980s stadium days. Though Rob Barraco pulls off a killer Brent Mydland impression on his nights with Dark Star Orchestra, in a situation like this you have to defer to resident bluesman Warren Haynes. Later in the set, coming out of an ethereal and otherworldly “Dark Star”, Phil and Friends got stuck in Traffic once again for a “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys”, again helmed by Haynes. The resulting jam, one of the final bits of deep-end improv of the evening, highlighted the artistic balance that made The Q the most lauded of any Phil & Friends lineups of this century. Starting off in a delicate bluesy whisper from Haynes, Molo built the intensity until Herring burst the jam open with frenetic Col. Bruce Hampton-inspired acid jazz chops before ultimately circling back around to Haynes’ coda.
After a rollicking “Passenger”, Haynes once again stole the show on the set-closing cover of Van Morrison‘s “Into the Mystic”. Coming back for the encore, before Lesh introduced his bandmates—whose next performance is anybody’s guess—he took a moment to thank the sold-out crowd.
“I just want to say that this audience is always special for me to come out here and play,” Lesh said. “Because you give us what we need, you give us the love and the energy and the general good vibe. And if we can close that circuit, then we can make the music. Thanks to you.”
In that spirit of closing the circuit, Lesh, Haynes, Herring, Molo, and Barraco brought it all back around by reprising “The Wheel” that started the show to bring the evening and the first week of Phil’s Capitol Theatre residency to a close. Lesh returns to The Cap on Wednesday, March 13th; Friday, March 15th; and Saturday, March 16th with a new group of Friends. Tickets for Wednesday’s show are still available on The Cap’s website while the rest are sold out.
Check out videos and audio from Phil Lesh and The Q at The Capitol Theatre on Wednesday along with images courtesy of photographer Joseph Lugo.
Phil Lesh & Friends – “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider” (Traditional) – 3/6/24
[Video: K T]
Phil Lesh & Friends – “Dear Mr. Fantasy” (Traffic), “Shakedown Street” [Pro-Shot] – 3/6/24
Phil Lesh & Friends – The Capitol Theatre – Port Chester, NY – 3/6/24 – Full Audio
[Audio: ckeough]
Setlist: Phil Lesh & Friends | The Capitol Theatre | Port Chester, NY | 3/6/24
Set One: The Wheel [1] > Night Of A Thousand Stars, New Speedway Boogie, New Potato Caboose, Bird Song, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider
Set Two: Jam > Dear Mr. Fantasy (Traffic), Shakedown Street, Unbroken Chain, Dark Star > Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys (Traffic), Passenger, Into The Mystic (Van Morrison)
Encore: Donor Rap, The Wheel
[1] Acapella, partial
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