Dead and Company

Let me start by saying that when I bike ride I am never a MAML. This acronym (pronounced "mammal") stands for "Middle Aged Men in Lycra" and refers to guys who squeeze their paunchy mid-life selves into too-tight bike clothes, with a net visual effect that's both comedic and horrible.

So, I'll also add that I'm not a MAMT. I just made up this acronym and don't have a good pronunciation for it, but it stands for "Middle Aged Men in Tie-dye". Heck, even when I was younger I didn't wear much tie-dye. I always felt inauthentic, like I was impersonating a hippie. The folks who followed the Dead, the white guys in dreadlocks and their barefoot women, the 60's holdover stoners ... they were entitled to wear tie-dye. I did not wish to be an impersonator of a particular lifestyle.

Let me say that last night at Jiffy Lube Live (capacity 25,000) there were roughly 24,999 people who disagreed with me. The place was littered with DC MAMLs, bearded guys who probably live very non-hippie lifestyles. Perhaps they are deep in the bureaucracy by day, working for the Department of the Exterior Interior Fish, Wildlife and Internal Revenue before returning to their McMansions at night. But once in a while they put on their tie-dye shirts and, lo and behold, they're hippies! Except they keep checking their work email.

Anyway, because of mix-ups, last minute illnesses, and the like, I wound up at the Dead and Company show by myself. I almost didn't even go, but I figured the band is fading away (it's down to 50% realy Grateful Dead members) and so I should see it while I can. Plus I had a great ticket for the General Admission pit area right up front. Plus I decided not to get depressed over something which was supposed to be a good time.

Upon getting into the arena in true Deadhead fashion I downed some mushrooms and coke - and by that I mean a surprisingly good portabello burger and a Diet Coke. Properly fed, I wandered into the pit and got way up front. This was pretty cool. It was too tight up there to dance, but not uncomfortably packed. There was a lot of weed being smoked (don't these MAMT bureaucrats care about their clearances???). Most of the crowd around me was MAMTs and their female equivalents. A few Deadhead freaks, including a couple dressed in matching black and white striped pants and black tops. They were both wearing clown noses and had accessorized their hair with Caution tape (he with a headband, she with a hair bow). One very redneck lookin' guy and his two redneck lookin' teenage sons - had they shown up the wrong night for Kenny Chesney? Anyway, a very fun first set.

During intermission I wandered around and remarkably ran into Bill Y., a Westover friend. I tried to find Rick & Cheryl (other Westover folks) but security wasn't letting people into sections unless they had tickets for that section, so I couldn't get to them.

For the second set I hung further back in the pit, where things were more open and there was a lot more dancing going on. I don't do Fitbit, but I bet I got a lot of steps in! After a while I became intrigued by this group of four people in front of me: a guy and three women. The guy and one of the women were, I would guess, in their 40's. The other two women were younger. All four were singing along and dancing and all four had their hands all over each other in a way that was a little beyond friends dancing together. Certainly the guy had his hands all over the women, who didn't seem to mind, and two of the women were pretty intimate with each other. Were they just all incredibly f*cked up? Was it some sort of Deadhead Sister-wives situation? Were they closely bonded because they were all reincarnated from the same animal spirit? I never did manage to figure it out, but I did notice that in her Dead show ecstasy the littlest woman was hugging just about everyone around her. She and I had exchanged a couple of words over the course of the set when we had bumped into each other while dancing or in places where the band hit a high point, but she hadn't included me in her otherwise generous outpouring of hugs. This was no surprise to me, as I know that I send out some sort of megawatt non-verbal "DO NOT TOUCH ME" vibe. I don't do this on purpose, and I don't know exactly how I do it, but I do it.

I resolved that I was going to get a hug from this girl before the end of the show.

Well, that's a lot of build-up for very little climax. We did not lock eyes and fall madly in love. We did not discover that we were long lost brother and sister. I did not knock her wig off and accidentally reveal her to be a cyborg. But at one point in her gyrations she turned around and while she was facing me I did my best impersonation of a"give me a hug" kind of gesture (a language I do not speak fluently) and, lo and behold, she did. Soon after that the (just as interminable as ever!) drum solo started and I wandered away to a different area of the pit. But I came home (a) having experienced a truly excellent Terrapin Station suite, and (b) having successfully impersonated a normal person for just a moment.

The Band: Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, along with Oteil Burbridge on bass and John Mayer in the Jerry Garcia role.

The set list:

Cold Rain and Snow
New Speedway Boogie
El Paso
They Love Each Other
Candyman
Bird Song
Don't Ease Me In

Lost Sailor>
Saint of Circumstance
Viola Lee Blues
Terrapin Suite>
Drums (w/Oteil joining Mickey and Billy on percussion)>
Space>
Dear Prudence>
Scarlet Begonias>
Sunshine Daydream

Encore:
Black Muddy River