Widespread Panic

…aka “Widespread Picnic”, or “Widespread Panic at the Disco”.   I mentioned this band briefly in my more recent revisit to the issue of jam bands, but now having actually seen them in concert (Coney Island, Ford Amphitheater, Saturday, September 10), I can comment a bit more about them.  I’ll also comment on the Grateful Dead and the jam band scene in general. 

Like their comrades the Allman Brothers’ Band, WP are from Georgia.   The Grateful Dead had Jerry Garcia (and upon his demise, Bobby Weir), and Phish have Trey Anastasio, another guitarist-singer.  For WP, it’s John Bell, who sounds like a Southern Jim Morrison.  They have twelve studio albums, of which I have the first two, Space Wrangler, Widespread Panic (self-titled), and the most recent three, Free Somehow, Dirty Side Down, and Street Dogs.  The material is heavier and more rock-oriented than the Dead or Phish, so I find it a bit less tiresome than either of those.  Like those bands, in concert you can expect a different set each night, and two full 90 minute sets split up with a brief intermission.  Not wanting to risk confusion in Manhattan at late hours, I took the subway back to Port Authority after the first set, and availed myself of the band’s website to download the entire show once I got back home. 

Having that option was nice and impressive in its own right.  Phish sell packages where you can download the entire tour, and again having a different set each night makes that worthwhile.  Pearl Jam and Clutch are the only non-jam bands I’m aware of who vary up their setlists. I wish more bands would do it.  On this final tour Black Sabbath played literally the same set each night, though they did add in a few more obscure songs.  On the other hand, the tie-dye shirt I got from the parking lot far exceeded the paltry selection WP had at its own concession stand.  I guess you can’t beat everything.  Perhaps they don’t bother because they know the bootleggers are better at making shirts than they are.  Anyhow.

The Parking Lot.  Here’s where I’d like to veer off from talking about WP in particular and address a specific element of jam bands in general.   I already mentioned the variable set lists, but the parking lot scene is worth mentioning.

            I’m not going to claim to be a huge veteran of the jam band scene.  Of the 200+ shows I’ve seen, the vast majority were standard rock concerts.   The doors open at 7 p.m., the opening act goes on at 8 and plays until 8:45, and the headliner goes on at 10 p.m. and plays until 11:30.  You have reserved seats and only get there early if you have a specific interest in the opening act.  100% of your purchases are inside the venue, typically a t-shirt and maybe a beer and pizza or nachos.  That’s Heavy Metal Parking Lot, the majority of my concertgoing experience from 1984 to the present.

The jam band scene is different.   Although the WP show had a modest parking lot, and I’ve been to the scene at a Jerry Garcia Band show (at the Cap Center), my #1 parking lot experience was at the Grateful Dead show at RFK Stadium in June 1992.  This was well before I actually got into the Dead, but did recognize “Casey Jones”, a song which rarely gets played lived notwithstanding (or perhaps because of) its popularity.   As Jerry Garcia died in 1995, this was the tail end of their original run.  After he died the band reunited a few times again as “The Dead” (which I’ve seen) with Bobby Weir in the Garcia role and often with guests, e.g. Warren Haynes of Govt Mule (2003) and more recently John Mayer.  So I can’t even really claim to be a big Dead veteran.   My cousins saw the show in Egypt in 1978.  They have me beat there.

Anyhow.  I got there at noon (this was a Saturday), and my law school buddy Bloss showed up at 1 p.m.   By 2 p.m. the parking lot was full.  We’re talking about the entire parking lot at a football stadium.  Ironically, all this time I’ve been a Vikings fan I’ve never actually tailgated at an NFL game.  I’ve never even been to Minnesota, and the only Redskins game I’ve been to was at FedEx Field; my RFK visits were all for concerts.  What passes for psychedelic tailgating at the Grateful Dead show at RFK includes:

1.  Food.  Some of it is that bizarre falafel stuff that only hippies eat.  The rest was regular stuff like hamburgers and hot dogs – plus soft drinks, water, and beer.

2.  T-shirts.  Of course, the well-done tie dye shirts were common.  I even saw a tie-dye vendor at the WP show on the Coney Island boardwalk.  These are high quality.  But there were also some very clever Calvin & Hobbes shirts, even a Calvin vs. Bart Simpson bong-off deal.

3.   Bootlegs.  Actually, back in 1988 my buddy Baron sold bootleg Pink Floyd photos (taken at the Philadelphia show the prior fall) in the parking lot at RFK for the Pink Floyd show (A Momentary Lapse of Reason tour).   Our buddy Rob traded some pics for drugs; I simply sat down with the main stash and read Ayn Rand books.  I don’t recall much traffic in bootlegs at the GD show, though in the days before the Internet was popular (1992) this would have been more prevalent than it is now.  

4.   Drugs.  Remarkably, despite all the drugs for sale, the cops were MIA and I didn’t see anyone busted.  Obviously marijuana is the most popular, but “doses” (LSD), mushrooms, and nitrous oxide (N20) sold out of tanks and by the balloon full, were also available.  I overheard one guy joking that it was a de facto drug bazaar. 

I’m not at liberty to disclose or reveal which drugs – if any – JB and I purchased and/or consumed, but suffice to say that if anyone was looking for such items and had no personal supplier, this was the place to find it.  On the other hand, putting too much emphasis on drugs is a mistake.  The band, the music – the unpredictable set lists varying night by night for the entire tour – the entire experience was unique.  I can say with the utmost confidence that, notwithstanding my limited sample size of ONE, the more seasoned veterans going back to the 70s and 80s will confirm this: there was nothing like a Dead show. 

At 7 p.m. the Steve Miller Band went on, but Bloss and I didn’t go into the stadium itself until just before the Dead were due to go onstage.  I had tickets for section 3 million something, seats we never saw.  We just went down to the field and joined the crowd, with no hassle.  By beginning of set two, which started with “Corinna”, I had moved close up to the stage.  We stayed to the end:  the encore was “Baba O’Riley” (Who cover), and “Tomorrow Never Knows” (Beatles cover).   A few years later, after I finally “got into” the Dead, my friend Ken gave me a bootleg of this particular show, which I listen to from time to time (minus “Drums/Space”, which I regularly ignore). 

[Incidentally, I did go to see the Dead once more before Jerry died, in 1995.  This time around I did not hang out in the parking lot but simply went into the show.  It was raining, unlike the beautiful summer weather in 1992.  I blame the weather for not cooperating (but the heat came ‘round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day).]

It’s tempting to bust on the audience as tripping hippies who think they’re amoebas. There are a few spinners – zoned out trippers spinning around to the music – but my contrast was this.  The month later, in July 1992, my brother and I went to RFK to see Metallica and Guns N’Roses, with Faith No More opening. The crowd was hardcore assholes from wall to wall.  Although this was music I much preferred and related to, the audience was not nearly as cooperative and enjoyable.  I’d take a comatose, shrooming hippie over an overintoxicated, belligerent Metallica fan picking fights with everyone around him.  The floor scene at the Dead was mellow; the floor scene during Metallica was an entire crowd fighting itself.  It’s definitely two different scenes…man.