No Matter What You Did on New Year’s Eve, These Folks had More Fun than You
No matter what you did on New Year’s Eve - even if you were in Hawaii, even if you attended Bob Weir and Bill Kreutzmann’s Rising up to Paradise concert on Kauai - there are a few people who had a better time than you did.
And those are the folks who were invited to a private, pre-Paradise acoustic show that found Weir on guitar and vocals and Kreutzmann on brushed drums joined by Don Was (upright bass), Wally Ingram (percussion) and Steve Kimock (lead guitar) for a short set of stripped-down Grateful Dead numbers.
Fan-shot video of “Bird Song,” “Jack Straw,” “Peggy-O” and “Friend of the Devil” surfaced on YouTube and they’re just delightful. Though two of the tracks run more than 10 minutes, these are not face-melting jams. These are informal, almost rehearsal-like, performances that gently meander as if floating on ocean currents between the Hawaiian island.
Some of the subtlety is lost in the poor sound quality and Weir sings so low as to be occasionally barely audible. But the specialness of these performances is palpable and the yearning for a soundboard recording is real.
And these people had a better New Year’s Eve than you did.
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