On Friday night, a friend and I took a bit of a road trip to see a band. We saw a Grateful Dead tribute band called Dark Star Orchestra. Now these guys did a real nice job. They were technically very good, and while they didn’t try to look like the Dead, and they jammed really well, it struck me as kind of sad.
There were about 2,000 people in the bar, many were jammed up front near the stage dancing around and singing just like it used to be at Dead shows. There were even a lot of young people. It just seemed to me that most of them were trying to fake it. That they were trying to force some vibe that really wasn’t there, at least not for me. I was in a balcony above and had a next bird’s eye view of the stage.
Before the show, we were in a pub next door and my friend recognized a couple of members of the band. As we were leaving, I found myself standing next to one and I asked how many shows they do a year. She told me that they were on number 187 this year. So obviously these folks can make a decent living doing this.
Well, pointless ramble, but I still had a good time and the beer was good. I had a few Magic Hats – a Vermont local brew.
