NEW RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE April 11 2006 Seattle

[StoneMtn]

week ago tuesday (apr. 11), the scoobalicious one & i cruised down to the dinner club like triple door in seattle to see the legends, NRPS (new riders of the purple sage).

it was NRPS vets david nelson & buddy cage w/ help from mike falzarano (from electric hot tuna the scoob informed me) and two young guns, ron penque & johnny markowski from excellent new jersey jamband stir fried.

the triple door is a sit down joint where folks drink as well as eat (and the owners make a mint no doubt as the place brings in as much jazz as classic rock, fareed played there in early march w/ the EHE). smoothly sloped up from the stage, the sightlines are excellent for the 250/300 folks from anywhere in the room. and the stage curtains have the sparkly stars that looked great along w/ NRPS's psychblobs.

before the show even started the scoob got the "right there live GH" identifying the star guest walking down the aisle to the stage.

it was quite the treat to see these guys after listening to them for centuries. they played that lovely loose psychedelic country w/ some fab extended jams mostly lead by nelson. you coud tell how much fun penque & markowski were having enjoying playing w/ their heroes. they played NRPS classics, "henry", dirty business", rainbow", "lochinvar", honed in southern cali bars & farms a long time ago. they also played a couple of great stones classics (stones' wouldn't be able to play them as well now).

in the middle of the first set falzarano stepped up to the mike & said "two years ago there was a great disturbance in the force when this guy left new york for seattle, JOHN POPPER!" john proceeded to join the band for a few songs in the middle of each set. hadn't seen him before & i was duly impressed by the swinging sound he gets out of his harp. poor guy looks like he's put a bunch of the weight back he'd lost. the scoob said he still used to be much bigger.

other highlights were buddy telling the audience that they have to do their bit to first get bush out of office and then the congress.

and nelson asking the us if we were greasers before hippies cause "i certainly was" he said & launched into some appropriate tune.

after the show SDH & i were at the stage waiting for posters to be autographed (of course) & saying hello to buddy. i told him i loved his duelling pedal steels w/ kimock on the jamcruise. he laughed & admonished me that it was a "conversation". and hughie was a happy puppy to get a poster signed by nelson who seldom does that for folks.

could definitely enjoy seeing a band such as little feat in this venue.

See review and original thread here.