Touch of Grey on Jerry’s Birthday

The birthday boy couldn’t be there--at least not in the flesh--but they threw a great party for Jerry Garcia at the Ventura County Fairground’s Seaside Park on Thursday, the day the Grateful Dead guitarist would have turned 54.

This first of two Southern California stops for the Furthur Festival, a concert tour topped by bands featuring former Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, wasn’t a recreation of the Dead, musically speaking. But the Deadheads didn’t seem to mind.

Hippie-esque fans cavorted in birthday party hats, shouted “Happy birthday, Jerry” as if he actually were on stage and twirled away blissfully to the seven hours of music on the outdoor, oceanside dirt racing track. And there was nary a mention of the fact that next Friday will mark the one-year anniversary of Garcia’s death of a heart attack while in a drug rehabilitation facility.

Instead, as suggested by the title of the festival (a reference to the destination posted on Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters bus), the focus for both the musicians and the Deadheads was more on taking the long, strange trip to new vistas.

“It’s what’s left,” said Sam Janis, an 18-year-old New Jersey resident who has been on the road to follow the tour for the last two weeks, about the chance to experience the Deadhead gypsy lifestyle. “It’s given to us as a gift, and what a very positive thing this is.”

Sure, there weren’t as many people here as there would have been for a Grateful Dead concert--about 9,000, rather than the tens of thousands that swarmed around the original band. But these were, to a larger extent than at latter-day Dead concerts, the serious fans, the ones for whom the band was a lifestyle, not just a concert attraction. For them, this was a way to carry on and move ahead.

The musicians, too, performed as if they viewed the chance to play for the Deadheads as a gift. Weir’s band Ratdog, Hart’s Mystery Box and part-time Dead member Bruce Hornsby each take a distinctive part of the Dead sound and philosophy and spin it in their own direction. Despite clocking in at seven hours, the show didn’t feel like the kind of sprawling marathon associated with the Dead. The other acts on the extremely efficiently run show --L.A.’s Los Lobos, Hot Tuna (featuring former Jefferson Airplane members Jorma Kaukonenand Jack Casady), English expatriate folkie John Wesley Harding, Delta blues revivalist Alvin Youngblood Hart and even comedy jugglers the Flying Karamazov Brothers--share some aspect of the Dead’s aesthetic.

Of the Dead principals, drummer Hart’s new project is the most artistically successful, and most unique. Building on his long-standing passion for world music rhythms--he’s written two books on the subject and, as an artist and producer, has released a series of albums of historical field recordings and new fusions--he has woven a vivid and enticing pan-global tapestry with his new band. Naturally, rhythms are the foundation, with Hart joined on this tour by four world-class percussionists drawing on African, Indian, Latin-Caribbean and American traditions. That alone was enough to keep the twirlers twirling.

But what makes Mystery Box so distinctive are the lovely, quite pop vocal melodies, performed terrifically both on the group’s recent debut album and in this show by the Mint Juleps, a London-based soul ensemble comprising four sisters (Debbie, Elizabeth, Marcia and Sandra Charles) and two longtime friends. Live, their spirit is especially infectious.

Unfortunately, Ratdog, which followed Mystery Box and a brief acoustic set from Hot Tuna that covered for a stage set-up change, brought that spirit down a bit. This wasn’t much of a shock to the Deadheads. With Weir taking the blues-based Americana threads of the Dead’s tapestry, this band (co-fronted by bassist Rob Wasserman) has earned a reputation for lacking somewhat in the dynamics department.

However, the addition of pianist Johnnie Johnson--famed for his landmark ‘50s work with Chuck Berry--has given the band added spark. But a gorgeous, subdued version of his own “Looks Like Rain” (from his 1973 solo album “Ace” and a longtime Dead standard), a sparkling bass solo by Wasserman, improvised on the Dead’s psychedelic-era “The Other One” and the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” and a solid closer of “Turn On Your Love Light,” another blues number that was a staple of the Dead’s early years, showed some stylistic range and were definitely crowd-pleasers.

It was pianist Hornsby, who sat in with the Dead for a year and a half after the 1989 death of Brent Mydland, that may have most embodied the Dead vibe--though his music bears little direct resemblance. Loose and freewheeling, Hornsby led his versatile, horns-spiked band through an impressive set that skipped from his pop hits (“Step by Step,” “Mandolin Rain”) to free-jazz workouts to teasing bits of familiar tunes (including “Love Light”) that matched immaculate musical skills with a playfully mischievous streak.

Los Lobos and Hot Tuna also proved perfect for the lineup, not having to do much to tailor their sets--richly textured, highly imaginative variations on blues, rock and Latin styles for Lobos; solid, guitar-based blues-rock for Tuna--to capture the crowd. And Harding proved a big hit with his witty, chatty songs skewering pop culture conventions, as were the Karamazovs’ dada-esque bits. The latter two, along with Alvin Youngblood Hart and the acoustic Tuna set, also kept the day moving at a fast clip, with their performances taking place on a small front stage while equipment was moved around behind them between the main acts.

Most impressive, though was the closing jam session that, rather than wallowing in predictable, sloppy Dead tribute mode, was elevated into something that stands on its own, drawing on the strengths of all the acts of the day. With Weir leading the assembled masses on stage and Hart anchoring from a drum kit, a version of the Dead’s anthemic “Playing in the Band” turned into a stellar excursion featuring Hornsby’s piano, Hidalgo’s guitar and the Hornsby band horns, before segueing into a spunky “Proud Mary” and a subdued but not somber “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”

“I hope it’s not the last--this is the funnest thing I know, dancing and seeing friends,” said Dana, 32, who was working at this show for a Dead-related merchandise vendor and who says that she didn’t miss a single Dead concert between 1981 and 1987--650 in all. “This could be the last thing to hold on to like this. That sounds silly, I know.”

But as the crowd left the park, a sound coming from the beach made it clear that the experience, at least in part, will probably continue: The sound of drums from a communal circle, a trademark of the serious Deadheads, wafted along the sand.