It all began with Live At Fillmore East, the Allman Brothers seminal live record released in 1971. A few years after it came out, we’d put that record on and drown in it’s waves of incredible guitar solos, hypnotizing organ sounds, memorable vocals and just plain killer jams. Southern Rock had arrived in Wilton, and the Allman Brothers ushered it in.
But my first actual night with the Allman Brothers wasn’t until 1979, April 26th to be exact.
I had been an Allman Brothers fan for all of my high school years as Southern Rock infiltrated the minds and hearts of us young Connecticut boys; along with The Outlaws, Marshall Tucker and the great Lynyrd Skynyrd, our lives were a rolling Southern Rock soundtrack, the music was a part of everything and anything we did. But the Brothers had split up in the mid 70’s right in the middle of the beginning of our adoration of them…Gregg Allman’s drug problems and internal squabbling would cause them to go their separate ways for a period…so we never got a chance to see them live until that magical spring of ’79, my freshman year in college.
I remember the Springfield Civic Center (where I also saw my first Gratfeul Dead show) going dark, then the chills kicked in, then wham, the white hot stage lights blazed on, and in a flash, there they were: longtime members Gregg Allman, Dickey Betts, Jaimoe and Butch Trucks along with newcomers Dan Toler and David Goldflies, it was the Allman Brothers Band in full glory, opening with the opener-of-openers Don’t Want You No More, then seguewaying into the wrenchingly beautiful Not My Cross To Bear. Shivers ran up, down and sideways through my body like never before, because it was them, the Brothers, the band that been along for so many of our high school memories, right up there, in the flesh.
Over the next couple of years, we’d see them everytime they’d do their East Coast swing, I remember a bunch of us even drove from Connecticut up to Lenox, Mass. to see them play, plus a couple of local arena & outdoor shows here and there; the Brothers would always be a concert staple for our gang up into the early 80’s.
But turmoil of one kind or another would split them up again in 1982, and it wouldn’t be until 1989, after some solo forays and a reunion one off or two, that the newly rejuvenated Allman Brothers Band would reform, replete with a relative newcomer to the jam band scene, guitarist Warren Haynes, who would invigorate the Brothers from that moment on, and largely keep them relevant and powerful to this day. Oh yeah, and the first show I took my now 14-year old son Ben to? The Allman Brothers Band in 2000 at then-Nissan Pavilion, when he was four. He gallantly hung in there throughout the whole show, which to my delight also included a rare cover of the Grateful Dead’s Scarlet Begonias. Towards the end, I carried him sleepily out in my arms as the band wailed through one of their encores, gently laying him in the back seat, and he was fast asleep in about ten seconds.
Yes, the Allman Brothers, who had I had been on the musical road with starting as a teenager, and who helped usher me through my most formative years, would now lull my own child to sleep 20 years later. The circle of life, the unbroken chain, the road goes on forever, the Allman Brothers have always been there. All the way up until even today, or better, last night, when I saw them play one of the most dazzingly intense, powerful, and nearly perfect live rock and roll shows I have ever seen in my life.
It was their first concert ever at the venerable DAR Constitution Hall in downtown DC, a few hundred feet from The White House and the Washington Monument, and the grandness of the venue seemed to fit this legendary warhorse outfit of consummate troubadour musicians. As I waited near the box office to receive my tickets, I wandered over to the tour bus area, and timing again was my best friend, as here came the band: the burly Warren Haynes, followed by slide guitar virtuoso, solo rock god and current Allman Bros. member Derek Trucks, and last but not least, yes, the great one, Mr. Allman, stopping briefly to sign an auotgraph and crack a smile before wandering in the stage door to prepare for the show.
It wasn’t lost on any of us that this was only the second show back for Gregg since he had undergone a liver transplant in June, and many wondered if he’d ever be able to return to the grueling rigors of the road again. His body had been battered by years of drinking and drugging, and really, how much can a body take? Well, there he was, a bit thinner than we remembered, but with his trademark pony tail and beard, ambling away with a nod and a smile. I shouted out “Welcome back, Gregg!” and yes, really, he briefly turned, nodded, and muttered, “Thanks”, before walking on. The night had begun with a true sparkle.
We got to our seats, and what seats they were, 5th row, dead center, with an open aisle row of star spangled carpet in front of us, perfect for dancing and better yet, seeing everything clearly, all night, such a key to a perfect live concert experience. We knew we’d get a great show no matter where our seats were, but fifteen feet from Gregg’s piano? Oh boy. Dear friend and DC radio royalty Cerphe came out on stage to welcome the rabid fans in attendance, here’s a guy who has seen the band countless times but still exuded a sense of wonder and excitement and it conveyed onto us all. We were ready.
Trying to be objective but probably failing miserably, I have to say the next three hours was one of the best performed live concert experiences I have ever seen in my life. From the opening 20 minute Mountain Jam, an instrumental canon unparalleled in it’s intensity and complexity and first released on record on the Bros. 1972 classic Eat A Peach, to it’s elegant reprise almost three hours later, this was to be a benchmark in my concert life, and it was with a band that had been with me since back when I first learned how special the concert experience really is almost 35 years ago.
The evening was of course gloriously filled with spot on versions of Allman Brothers classics – Statesboro Blues, Melissa (featuring Gregg front and center on acoustic guitar), Come and Go Blues, Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More, Revival, Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’, Don’t Want You No More, Not My Cross To Bear (yes, there were those first two songs I ever saw them do live, back for me tonight) as well as mesmerizing covers like Dr. John’s I Walk On Guilded Splinters and Bob Dylan’s haunting Blind Willie McTell. On this night, there was to be no One Way Out, Southbound, Midnight Rider or my personal favorite Allman Brothers hymn, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed (the song I want played at my funeral), but there wasn’t one moment when I ever found myself asking, “Why aren’t they playing this or that”, the show was simply that good.
The band was an unrelenting force of nature, out there on a mission to show everyone that they and their fearless newly-livered leader were back with a vengeance. Original drummers Jaimoe and Butch Trucks (Derek’s uncle) set the tempo perfectly all night, star-in-his-own-right bassist Oteil Burbridge laid down a picture-perfect deep end, and the legendary Gregg hypnotingly played the Hammond B-3 with typical mastery, peering out over it with his weathered face and blond locks. DC musical luminaries Ron Holloway on sax and Larry McRae on blistering electric guitar lent to the celebratory feel of the night.
But this epic journey was truly led down the golden road by the Allman Brothers’ two immensely talented and virtuostic guitar aces, who are major rock stars in their own right, Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks. The two were a true Fellowship Of The String, racing down the path of this journey trading dazzling solos, dueling on mindblowing leads, both playing consummate slide, then one playing slide while the other played rhythm, back and forth, up and down, it was truly a sight and sound to behold, as they constantly seemed to play better and better as the night wore on. It’s hard for me in my hundreds of prior concerts to ever remember two guitarists that good on one stage. Their performances together and apart were incredible, each showing why they rank at the top of the guitar playing craft of the day. I was directly in front of Trucks, whose slide prowess cannot help but be compared to Allman Brother founder and slide pioneer, the late Duane Allman. Trucks was simply masterful, wailing on solo after solo, one better than the next, no wonder he’s toured with greats like Clapton and others. I kept wondering if Duane and Dickey, back in their heyday, were ever this good. You have to believe they were, but for this one show, it’s hard to believe that the Allman Brothers ever had two guitarists this amazingly talented, playing this well, together on one stage.
After the second set ended with the Mountain Jam reprise, giving the night a ‘full circle’ kind of feel, it was only fitting that this monumental evening finished with a stunning 15 minute encore of arguably the Allmans most popular live tune, Whipping Post. Jump started with perhaps rock’s most famous bass intro, the band launched into a version of the song that had the entire DAR crowd swirling and dancing, and singing with every gravelly chorus of “I been tied…to the Whipping Post!” that Gregg would deliver. I can’t think of any song that could have surpassed the previous two and a half hours of near perfection, but the Post pretty much did. Trucks and Haynes did virtual guitar battle through the solos, Uncle Butch Trucks and Jaimoe banged out a cacophony of drum nirvana behind them (along with superb percussionist Marc Quinones) and Gregg supplied some of the most recognized organ and vocal licks in rock history.
It was especially poignant when, as the song wound down to a dramatic close, Gregg wailed out his classic line: “Sometimes, I feel like I’m dyyyyin….’” Well, he may have felt like that in the last year while gallantly battling liver disease, but on this night, the phoenix of Gregg Allman rose triumphantly from the ashes, and along with his legendary band, with members new and old, put a rock and roll mark on Constitution Hall that will not soon be forgotten, by me and the couple thousand lucky enough to witness it.
And as for my long journey with the Allman Brothers, one that now spans over 35 years? Well, for me, this definitely IS a road that goes on forever.