This gig proved to be the surprise package of the year for all concerned. The excellent crowd was a mix of die hard fans, West Coast freaks, Dead Heads, BoomBoom Club regulars and just the plain curious.
Well in truth, on the night everyone was curious. Aside from wishing to know what Paul Kantner could offer 40 odd years since Jefferson Starship's inception, (this after all was billed as a 40 year celebration of both Jefferson Starship and The Grateful Dead), there was an uncertain air to the evening that happily was quickly dispelled by the presence of former Dead pianist Tom Constanten.
Tom's eerie and ethereal piano lines were redolent of a bygone, but he demonstrated the art of melodic phrasing. He delved into the early Dead back catalogue and also came up with The Doors, Tim Rose, and some beautifully textured note clusters. His green socks also added sartorial elegance to his musical presence!
Jefferson Starship took to the stage shortly afterwards, to a rapturous welcome and promptly almost diffused the celebratory atmosphere with a shambolic entrance before tentatively dipping into “High Flying Bird”. In fact Paul Kantner's energetic downward thrust of his guitar apart, only fellow guitarist Slick Aguilar and the rock solid Prairie Prince on drums seemed at ease at this point.
With Diana Mangano's Grace Slick style phrasing being tempered by some animated between numbers histrionics, things started to get a little ragged round the edges. But hell, this band is not that far removed from the Grateful Dead, and the crowd remained with them throughout.
Then a weird unexpected thing happened. A guy in the crowd voiced his discontent. Kantner responded immediately, and a cheer went up from the crowd and in a flash all the tension, anger, tour worries etc seemed to evaporate in a flash as the set suddenly caught fire. Paul Kantner for his part puffed mightily on a string of cigarettes and showed that angst can be best channelled in a musical way by leaning into the highlights of your personal back catalogue.
The result was a boisterous reading of “Wooden Ships” and an inspired Slick Aguilar cameo on the emotive George Harrison classic “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. Quicksilver's David Freiberg meanwhile, rolled back the years on “Pride of Man”.
“White Rabbit” brought whoops of delight, and vocalist Diana didn't disappoint as she found her perfect vocal range to emulate Grace Slick's peerless recorded version.
Roared on by a bewildered but hugely enthusiastic crowd, who could barely believe what was happening, Kantner and Aguilar took their guitars into the crowd, before the band brought a perfunctory end to gloriously ragged set.
The fully deserved encore brought a magnificently powerful rendition of Quicksilver's “Who Do You Love”. David Freiberg found his voice again, and Slick Aguilar turned up the heat with some heavy toned Bo Diddley riffs. By the time of an unexpected second encore – a rousing reading of “Ride The Tiger” – the band had pulled off a triumph in the face of a truck load of adversity. Paul Kantner actually smiled, Prairie Prince smirked, Freiberg chuckled, and even the seemingly troubled Diana, waved her arms with a flourish. An unforgettable night then, for many, many reasons, bringing to mind the time honoured phrase, “I was there”.
Pete Feenstra