by Benjy Eisen

I was just 15 years old when I saw my first Grateful Dead concert19 when I saw the last Dead shows ever, at Soldiers Field in Chicago. Im a kid of the Phish era, my coming of age firmly rooted somewhere in Gamehenge amongst famous mockingbirds and a divided sky. So when I went to see The Other Ones at Montage Mountain last week, it was with neither the need for something missing from my past, nor the want to experience a history Id only heard about through Maxell XLIIs. I just wanted to go to a concert, man. Thats all.

The Other Ones are even more other than before one Dead alumni departed (bassist Phil Lesh), one recruited (drummer Bill Kreutzmann). Phil was replaced by Alphonso Johnson; Kreutzmann took over for shoe-in John Molo. Also missing this time out was horn player Dave Ellis. With three gone and two new, The Other Ones are arguably a different band this time around, despite being the next step of The Grateful Dead: Three full time members of the Grateful Dead, one honorary one. Mark Karan was pulled from Bob Weirs other one, Ratdog and Alphonso Johnson worked with Weir in Bobby And The Midnights, though gained fame supplying the low-end for Santana and Weather Report. More recently, he was a member of Jazz Is Dead, which reinterpreted Grateful Dead songs in an instrumental, exploratory jazz context. So its all in the family. So is the repertoire all but two of the twelve songs played at Montage were taken directly from the Deads songbook.

Opening with Dark Star is, for Deadheads, the equivalent of a smoke and pyro entrance. Once the smoke cleared however, a hand signal by Bob Weir closed whats otherwise a notoriously open ended tune and brought it around instead into a lively but to-the-point Truckin. This seemed to set the mode of operation for the first half of the set a half characterized by calculated delivery and short, forced transitions (whereas the Dead built an empire out of doing the exact opposite).

A reunited Rhythm Devils (Hart/Kreutzmann) meant the return of drumz/space and the two percussionists explored the expected tribal ground with authority and earthy wisdom. Hornsby was the first to jump into space, dancing delicately around the Dark Star theme before bringing Kimock and Johnson in on a turning-point jam that shape-shifted the show from its business as usual start to its holy moley finish.

The evenings highlight came when the band came back around to Dark Star for the fourth time, after a Caribbean-laced jam out of The Wheel. Here, Kimocks playing was inspired, invoking both the spirit of Garcia and the evolution of the new west. Johnson threw down a foundation upon which everything else rode, and Karan added enough grit to keep things hot. Weir ran with it, allowing the jam to develop some and move into a blues investigation before morphing into a celebrational set-ending Touch Of Grey a song about grace beating circumstance. Something The Other Ones seem to be trying their hand atwith varying results.

Indeed, throughout the night it felt as if the band was fighting for something, and if no one was sure exactly what it was, everyone had their ideas. After periods of uncertainty, by the time Touch of Grey came around it seemed as if the band was, if nothing else, at least heading for a win. A fact joyfully acknowledged by the crowd, who emphatically joined in on the songs We will survive mantra.

Although the former members of the Dead did their part in ensuring that the classics would sound as only members of that band could make them, they were given a refreshing new chassis to ride on, thanks entirely to Alphonso Johnson, who was able to supply otherwise supple and flowing songs with a bouncy, almost funky, bottom end. A remarkable Hes Gone had both the mournful balladeering present from back before He was gone, and the undeniable new bump that Johnson brings to the enterprise.

Yet, for all this talk about new paint jobs and continuation, the low point of the night came when The Other Ones tried performing Down The Road, a newer tune whose lyrics reference Jerry Garcia. The only way The Other Ones are going to gain any cred is if they prove they are not a Grateful Dead nastalgia act. Thats hard to prove when one of your few post-Dead songs includes the lines, I heard a sweet guitar lick, an old familiar soundIt sounded like Garcia but I couldnt see the face/Just the beard and the glass and a smile on empty space.

If The Other Ones have to measure up against the total sum of its parts and their historythat is, if The Other Ones have to measure up against The Grateful Deadthen its all for nothing. Theres no replacing Jerry and theres no replacing Phil. But if The Other Ones have only themselves to measure up to a band just weeks old in this incarnation - then its true that this song aint never gonna end, after all.

Every time that wheel turn round
bound to cover just a little more ground.