Oteil Burbridge has made a lot of friends over the course of his already-legendary music career He was one of the original members of Col. Bruce Hampton’s Aquarium Rescue Unit and the Tedeschi Trucks Band, spent 17 years recording and touring with the Allman Brothers Band, played with Page McConnell and Russell Batiste Jr. in Vida Blue, went on the road with the Bill Kreutzmann‘s BK3 and, most recently (and famously), has been officially blessed by the Grateful Dead community since joining forces with Bob Weir, John Mayer, Jeff Chimenti, Mickey Hart, and (originally) Kreutzmann in Dead & Company in 2015.
So, when Oteil opted to go on tour after spending the summer of 2024 inside Sphere in Las Vegas, he likely didn’t have to look too far or try too hard to find top-notch musicians with whom he’d want to jam into the fall.
For this latest tour, that troupe came to include Jerry Garcia Band keyboardist Melvin Seals, multi-instrumentalist and frequent Friend of Phil Lesh‘s Jason Crosby, singer and regular Oteil collaborator Lamar Williams Jr., guitarist Tom Guarna, and the father-son duo of guitarist Steve Kimock and drummer Johnny Kimock.
An unspecified illness kept Melvin Seals from performing during the band’s September show in Los Angeles, but it didn’t stop Oteil & Friends from putting on a bona fide Deadhead dance party inside The Bellwether. Across two sets and an encore, this brilliant bunch filled the air with classic covers, a smattering of originals, and one mind-blowing mashup.
The first set drew particularly heavily from Oteil’s ties to the Allman Brothers Band and Grateful Dead. He and his mates opened and closed the opening portion with “Blue Sky”, interspersed with the marvelous instrumental “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed”. In between the non-stop set that segued seamlessly from one song to the next, they sprinkled in “Franklin’s Tower” with Oteil on vocals and jammed through a standalone version of “Slipknot!”.
The crowd went extra spinny, though, when Jason took the lead on the group’s now-signature amalgamation of the lyrics from “Friend of the Devil” and the melody from Nirvana’s “Lithium.” Jason’s voice and fiddle helped to bridge the gap between Americana and grunge, to the point that the two worked seamlessly together.
During the second set, Oteil & Friends dug deeper into both their own repertoires and shared songbooks.
They emerged from intermission with an Oteil-led cover of Bukka White’s “Fixin’ to Die Blues”, and Jason got to trot out a track of his own in the bluesy “Gambler’s Conceit”. With Tom on electric banjo, Oteil and Lamar brought back their original, “Love and War”, which they debuted last year during Oteil & Friends’ New Year’s Eve run in Florida—after roughly a decade in the works. Lamar, whose father Lamar Williams Sr. played with the Allman Brothers Band from 1972–1976, shined on vocals during that song, as well as on the group’s cover of The North Mississippi All-Stars’ “Time for the Sun to Rise”.
Though Melvin Seals wasn’t onstage with Oteil & Friends, they still pulled aplenty from Jerry Garcia Band’s typical rotation. Among the last four songs of the second set were JGB staples “Cats Under the Stars” and “Midnight Moonlight”, along with deep cut Mighty Clouds of Joy‘s “Mighty High” which Garcia’s side project played around 20 times in 1976 before shelving it.
After a brief debate about whether and what to play for the encore, Oteil brought his friends back out to end the evening with the Bobby “Blue” Bland tune-turned-Grateful Dead favorite “Turn on Your Love Light”. That track got an extra bump from both a bombastic bass solo by Oteil and a similarly ripping guitar feature from Tom.
Fortunately for fans of Oteil, the Dead, and all of the above, these Friends are far from done with their fall tour. After a pair of dates in northern California, this crew will skip across the country for two nights in South Carolina, followed by a stop in Annapolis, MD. Following a nearly-month-long break, they will be back in action in Boston, Ardmore, PA; and at The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY before wrapping up with two more shows in Denver and an appearance at the Golden Road Festival in Sanger, CA. With any luck, Melvin will be back in action for all of them.
Find tickets and a full list of Oteil & Friends tour dates here. Check out a gallery of images from Thursday’s show courtesy of photographer Josh Martin.
Setlist: Oteil & Friends | The Bellwether | Los Angeles, CA | 9/12/24
Set One: Blue Sky (Allman Brothers Band) > Franklin’s Tower (Grateful Dead), Mercy, Mercy, Mercy (Cannonball Adderley) > In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed (Allman Brothers Band) > Slipknot! (Grateful Dead) > Friend Of The Devil (Grateful Dead) [1]
Set Two: Fixin’ To Die Blues (Bukka White), Mother’s Song (John Kimock), Gambler’s Conceit (Jason Crosby), Love And War (Oteil Burbridge), Cats Under The Stars (Jerry Garcia Band), Time For The Sun To Rise (Earl King), Moonlight Midnight (Old & In The Way), Mighty High (Mighty Clouds Of Joy)
Encore: Turn On Your Love Light (Bobby “Blue” Bland)
[1] performed musically as Nirvana’s ‘Lithium’ with ‘Liz Reed’ and ‘Blue Sky’ reprises
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