epic

and worth every penny.

Some quick thoughts this morning, more to follow:
- Long drive through the back hills of the Catskills listening to “Electric Dirt”
- We arrive at the gate at 5:50 – plenty of cars in front of us
- Van! Carolyn! Benny’s Folks!
- We hear that they decided to pack the place tonight based on “so many of you Grace Potter fans who called and begged for tickets”. Largest crowd for a Ramble ever – maybe 300 people.
- The venue – oh the venue . . . the respect, no, the love for music in the crowd literally “hanging from the rafters”
- Little Sammy Davis – 81 year old Harmonica opens
- GPN on stage, Grace and Cat in sexy dresses, Scott, Matt and Benny casual
- Benny’s birthday! Justin Jrs birthday.
- From memory and not in order “Joey”,”Medicine”, “Goodbye Kiss”, “Money”, “Long Low Road”, “Ah, Mary”, “Big White Gate”, “Paris”, “NBTW” encore “Feel Like Making Love”.
- Crowd reaction – out of this world
. . .
Levon Helm – more later buy dayum! THIS BAND ROCKS. 11 people on stage.
- “Shape I’m In”, “Deep Ellem Blues”, “Fannie Mae”, “Long Black Veil”, “Tenneseee”, “Chest Fever”, “Calvary”, “Volver”, “Makes No Difference”, “The Weight” (Grace gets the first verse, Matt, Scott sing along, Cat on Bass, Benny on guitar)
- 21 song setlist for Levon’s band
- Horn section makes a lap around the room during a transcendent “Mardi Gras”
- The look of love on Grace/Matt’s face as they sit three feet from Levon and watch him do it.
- The horn player looks at us “you getting enough Tuba”?
- End of show – everyone I know and talk to looks, well, stunned for want of a better word. Stunned. Epic.
- 5 hours of music

I spent years not making the effort to drive two hours to see this show. My advice, don’t make the same mistake. Go see Levon as soon as you can.