Just another Saturday night in Mill Valley, capital of aging rock stars and aspiring hedge fund managers. Headed to D'Angelo's restaurant , our local "Cheers" where everyone knows my 9-year old daughter's name. Was her going away to camp dinner and the last night with my 21-year old nephew from New Orleans, who'd spent 6 weeks of the summer with us as an "intern" in my new real estate development company. Though we'd spent much of our time on the bay kayaking, surfing and tearing up the killer new disc golf course in GG Park, I think he learned a few life lessons, if not too much about real estate. His first weekend was the Memorial Day picnic, w the laid back but awesome free show from Weir (see attached pic), Harrison and Hicks already well chronicled on this site by my good bud, now we were capping off a great family summer experience with one more night to toast good times.

While at dinner, I see one of my regular Sweetwater pals at the bar, who tells me he's gearing up for the Phil and Friends show that night. As it was posted under an alias, I then realize why there was a lineup all day in front of the club that wasn't the usual over 50 crowd. Tickets were long gone he told me, but maybe our friendly doorman would smile on us. I tried to temper my nephew's excitement w the reality of getting into the 250 person club, as the last time he saw Phil was at Bonnaroo w Trey last year in front of 80,000 friends of the band. My enthusiasm did kick up a notch a few minutes later when into the restaurant walks Phil, his band and entourage, sitting a few tables behind us, doing a little carbo loading on D'Angelo's famous Tortellini de la Casa (well, famous to my daughter).

We walked around the corner to Sweetwater after dinner and with a bit of sweet talking and some under the table encouragement, our names magically appear on the list and we were in! I ran back home to tuck my daughter into bed, then bolted back to the club as sounds of Bird Song were drifting outside. Walking in I was stunned, both with the stifling heat of the club and the amazingly sweet sounds of Jackie Green singing and playing like a young Jerry. The 22-year old prodigy from Sacramento lit up the joint (as did many in the audience) with his beautiful voice and stylistic lead guitar playing. "Channeling Jerry" was a phrase heard often as they went into Friend of the Devil, then Green stole the show w a Duane Allman-like virtuoso rendition of Midnight Rider. Accompanying the always enthused Phil was the superb Steve Molitz, keyboardist from Particle (or "Jesus" as my nephew said they called him when he saw him w Particle recently), Barry Sless on 2nd guitar and the rockin John Molo on drums. They closed the first set w an impassioned Sugaree, Green getting more rockin' each time the chorus came around, then everyone poured out into the cool Mill Valley night, shirts drenched as much as the grins were wide.

Second set included an awesome Bertha, a Scarlet Begonia that had its moments (ok, we know Phil has to sing occasionally...), then finshed w a great Fire on the Mountain, Eyes of the World and Franklin's Tower. After a brief break, they came back on and rewarded the screaming doorman's request for Casey Jones with an incredible rendition of my favorite GD song that had the whole audience singing in (dis)harmony. Walking out, my nephew said "you know, there were millions of people at (Live Earth) concerts around the world today, and I can't imagine being at a better show than this one." I agreed with him, then 2 minutes later we were home in our peaceful Mill Valley tree house, surrounded by towering redwoods. Bleary-eyed, we woke early to send my sweet girl off to her sleepaway, then I drove my nephew to the airport. We said goodbye w a big hug, then I drove back home on autopilot, wondering how I'd gotten so lucky...

Mad Juan