Year’s later, Garcia’s trip lives on
July 29, 1999 by CRAIG PHILLIPS
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The Red & Black
The dead will be revived this weekend on the dawn of musical legend and Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia’s birthday.
Five local musicians and a keyboardist from Germany will perform two sets of Dead material Saturday night.
The show, dubbed “One More Saturday Night” after the popular Dead jam anthem, will take place on the eve of Garcia’s birthday and on the heels of widely-known Dead cover band Jazz is Dead’s performance Wednesday.
“(We) looked at the calendar and realized it was going to be Jerry’s birthday,” said Dave Domizi of the Fuzzy Sprouts. “We decided to get together and just have a fun jam.”
Domizi said that former Squat member and Sunny Side Up guitarist Michael Wegner got the whole idea for the concert together.
After contacting local musicians about the playing the show, Wegner compiled a list of Dead songs that he would like to cover.
“Michael sat down and wrote out a dream set of the Grateful Dead,” said Domizi. “He tried to get some big songs from each of the different genres the Dead played in.”
The influence of the Grateful Dead has had a big impact on all the members playing Saturday’s show and John Miley of the Breathlanes said that playing the Dead has usually been nothing more than a basement jam for him.
“Growing up I played the Dead a lot,” he said. “It certainly influences my sound with the Breathlanes, but I’ve never played Dead covers on the stage.”
Miley has played with the likes of Robert Fripp and the League of Crafty Guitarists but said his studies with the famous British guitar player won’t have any resonance with this Dead cover show.
Other local musicians playing the show will be drummer and percussionist Alberto Salazarte of White Buffalo. Salazarte’s band White Buffalo was a bedrock in the Athens’ music scene back in the early 90’s. Drummer Nate Hale of SVA will also join the line-up.
The only non-local musician playing the show will be Meinhard Erben from Heidelberg, Germany. Erben is a friend of Wegner’s and will be on the keyboards.
The two sets will all be original Grateful Dead material played the same as the band played it years ago.
“(The show) will basically be set-up like a Dead show, keeping a lot of the sequences the same,” said Miley. “Close to what it was really like.”
The first set of “One More Saturday Night” will begin at 10 p.m. at the Georgia Theatre. At midnight it will officially become Garcia’s birthday and the show will move into it’s second set.
Members playing Saturday’s show wouldn’t reveal the songs they plan to cover. But look for a wide variety of instrumental jam sessions originally spun up by the Grateful Dead and now being rehashed by some talented local musicians.
