Ratdog: Electric Factory

July 11, 2006 Philadelphia, PA
by Jim McCoy

Photos from Red Rocks courtesy and copyright of Susana Millman Photography.

Bob Weir first took the stage at Philadelphia's original Electric Factory just over 39 years ago as an original member of the Grateful Dead. Over a decade removed from his days alongside Jerry Garcia and company, Mr. Weir and Ratdog continue to make the Electric Factory their regular touring stop when passing through the City of Brotherly Love. The skeptics would deride Bob Weir as an aging dinosaur and Ratdog's tye-dyed fans as shiftless stowaways on a counterculture train that began running out of steam long before Garcia's last notes blew through the Windy City in August 1995; however, Tuesday's two hour-plus show demonstrated that Weir and his cohorts genuinely enjoy making music together and are not simply going through the motions for ol' times sake and their cut of the gate receipts.

Weir is arguably on the right hand side of the rhythm guitar throne that has been occupied by Keith Richards ever since the latter tuned a 5-string Telecaster to an open G chord and began pounding out one classic after another for decades. Weir's quirky rhythm guitar style is not only unique, but it allows the music to breathe despite Ratdog sometimes having as many as 7 musicians on stage during the show. He is no less adept a guitar player as he was while regularly touring with the Dead, and his vocals were delivered as professionally and sincerely in this intimate venue as they were when he was playing racetracks and football stadiums. He extended the ending of New Speedway Boogie-written in the aftermath of the Rolling Stones-headlined Altamont festival-using the crowd as backing vocalists. With the audience repeating the refrain, "One way or another, this darkness has got to give," Weir continued his vocal stylings over a tune that seemed oddly apropos in the post-9/11 and War in Iraq era, just as it was in '69 when the ideal of California peace and love hippiedom (and a young man) was stabbed to death by a knife in the hands of a Hell's Angel.

Weir surrounds himself with competent musicians, and the smiles between them during their musical interplay revealed that they can still have as much fun playing as the markedly younger audience does bopping around on the floor below. Weir is content to place Ratdog's lead guitar duties in the hands of Mark Karan, a longtime friend of the Dead scene who was playing a milestone 500th show in that role. Not simply a Garcia stand-in, Karan infuses some of himself in between the trademarked riffs in the Grateful Dead material. His highlight was his solo in Tennessee Jed, which gradually climbed to a peak that resulted in the audience yelling out their collective approval. Weir himself also took a rare lead break on his acoustic guitar during a nice version of Jack-a-Roe, on which Billy Nershi of String Cheese Incident also took part and contributed acoustic lead lines throughout.

The older blues-based covers like "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" and "Big Boss Man," now long-separated from their roots with Garcia and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, had begun to become nothing more than a novelty even when played with the Dead in the 90's. The same still applies today, as these numbers seemed to plod along toward their conclusion. There was, however, no denying the enthusiastic response from the crowd to original Dead material like "Tennessee Jed," "Standing on the Moon," "Touch of Grey" and the encore, "Ripple." Similarly, Ratdog's own "Ashes and Glass" was very well received, and Weir scores extra points for working Dylan's epic "Desolation Row" into the set and appearing to recall almost all of the words.

Ratdog will never be able to replicate the vibe and musical adventures (and misadventures) of the Grateful Dead, but that can be said for every band on the planet today and, truth be told, possibly for the rest of time. Instead of being looked upon as a Dead substitute, Ratdog should be taken for what it is: a bunch of talented musicians fronted by a rock legend, all of whom enjoy making some good music together and giving the audience their money's worth. There were a lot of smiles on the faces of concertgoers both during and after Ratdog's set, which is really the truest review of all.